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THE  BIBLE 

ITS  MEANING  AND  SUPREMACY 


THE  BIBLE 


ITS   MEANING   AND    SUPREMACY 


/'  BY 

F.  W.  FARRAR,  D.D.,  F.R.S. 

DEAN   OP  CANTERBURY 


TCvecSt  Tpan-e^Toi  fioxi/xoi — Traditional  saying  of  Christ 

'And  why,  even  of  yourselves,  judge  ye  not  what  is  right  ? ' 

Luke  xii.  57 
'  Prove  all  things ;  hold  fast  that  which  is  good ' — 1  Thess.  v.  21 

'  He  that  is  spiritiial  judgeth  (or  '  examineth  ' — avaKpivei)  all  things ; 
and  he  himself  is  judged  of  no  inan  ' — 1  CoE.  il.  15 

'  We  serve  In  newness  of  the  spirit,  and  not  In  oldness  of  the  letter ' 

Rom.  vii.  6 


NEW  YORK 

LONGMANS,  GREEN,  AND  CO. 

LONDON  AND  BOMBAY 
1897 


Copyright,  1897, 
by 

Longmans,  Green,  and  Co. 


All  Eights  Reserved 


GENERAL  MOTTOES 


'Will  ye  speak  unrighteously  for  God,  and  talk  deceitfully  for 
Him?'— Job  xiii.  7. 

'  Not  walking  in  craftiness,  nor  handling  the  word  of  God  deceit- 
fully ;  but  by  the  manifestation  of  the  truth  commending  ourselves 
to  every  man's  conscience  in  the  sight  of  God.' — 2  Cor.  iv.  2. 

'  Melius  est  ut  scandalum  oriatur  quam  ut  Veritas  supprimatur.' 

S.  Greg.  Homil.  7  in  Esek. 

'  O  superbi  Cristian,  miseri,  lassi, 

Che,  della  vista  della  mente  infermi, 
Fidanza  avete  ne'  ritrosi  passi, 

Non  v'  accorgete  voi,  che  noi  siam  vermi 
Nati  a  formar  1'  angelica  farfalla, 
Che  vola  alia  giustizia  senza  sehermif 

Di  che  1'  animo  vostro  in  alto  galla? 
Voi  siete  quasi  entomata  in  difetto. 
Si  come  verme,  in  cui  formazion  falla.' 

Dante,  Purgat.  x.  121-129. 

'  Idola  fori  omnium  molestissima  sunt ;  qu8B  ex  f oedere  verborum 
et  nominum  se  insinuarunt  in  intellectum. 

'Idola  theatri  innata  non  sunt  sed  ex  fabulis  theoriarum  et  per- 
versis  legibus  demonstrationum  plane  indita  et  reeepta.' 

Bacon,  Nov.  Org.  i.  lix.  Ix. 

'Being  persuaded  of  nothing  more  than  this,  that,  whether  it  be  in 
matter  of  speculation  or  of  practising,  no  untruth  can  possibly  avail 
the  patron  and  defender  long,  and  that  things  most  truly  are  likewise 
most  behovefully  spoken.'— Hooker. 

T 


vi  GENERAL  MOTTOES 

'  His  words  I  did  use  to  gather  for  my  food  and  for  antidotes  against 
my  faintings.'— BuNYAN. 

'  The  older  error  is,  it  is  the  worse, 
Continuation  may  provoke  a  curse : 
If  the  Dark  Age  obscured  our  fathers'  sight, 
Must  their  sons  shut  their  eyes  against  the  Light  f 

Bishop  Ken,  Edmund. 


MeydXr]  i]  dXTjdeia  koI  vnepioxvec. — 1  Esdras  iv.  41. 

'  Omni  studio  legendas  nobis  Scriptures  sunt  .  .  .  ut  probati  tra- 
pezitse  seiamus  quis  nummus  probus  sit,  quis  adulter.' 

Jer.  Comm.  in  Ephes.  1.  iii.  5  (VaU.  vii.  637). 

'  If  Truth  do  anywhere  manifest  itself,  seek  not  to  smother  it  with 
glosing  delusions,  acknowledge  the  greatness  thereof,  and  think  it 
your  best  victory  when  the  same  doth  prevail  over  you.' 

Hooker,  Eccl.  Pol.  Pref.  ix.  2. 

'  If  it  is  certain  that  the  writings  of  the  Old  Testament  offer  to  us 
many  grave  difficulties  which  we  are,  at  present,  unable  to  overcome ; 
it  is  no  less  certain  that  they  offer  a  revelation  of  a  purpose  and  a 
presence  of  God  which  bears  in  itself  the  stamp  of  truth.  The  diffi- 
culties lie  in  points  of  criticism ;  the  revelation  is  given  in  the  facts 
of  a  people's  life.' 

Bishop  Westcott,  The  Revelation  of  the  Father,  p.  159. 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 

PAGE 

Thoughts  of  men  in  the  present  clay  necessitate  a  plain  and  truth- 
ful as  well  as  reverent  expression  of  opinion.  Duty  of  ex- 
ercising the  reason.  Views  of  Butler ;  Locke ;  Whichcote ; 
the  'Westminster  Confession.'  Attacks  which  are  beside 
the  mark.  Importance  of  removing  stxmibling- blocks  from 
the  path  of  religion.  The  greater  part  of  this  book  consists 
of  proofs  of  the  grandeur  and  supremacy  of  the  Bible.  The 
benefits  which  resulted  from  the  plain  speaking  of  '  Eternal 
Hope.'  Assailants  of  the  Bible  often  misstate  the  doctrine 
of  Christians  on  the  subject  of  Inspiration.  DiflSculties  of 
'working  men.'  Opmiotts  are  not  doctrines.  Current  and 
all  but  universal  religious  opinions  may  form  no  part  of  the 
Christian  Creed.  Illustrations  :  (i)  from  views  of  the  Atone- 
ment ;  (ii)  from  views  of  '  the  Double  Procession '  of  the 
Holy  Spirit ;  (iii)  from  the  supposed  duty  of  intolerance  and 
persecution.  Simplicity  of  the  essential  elements  of  the 
Christian  Faith.  The  urgent  necessity  for  insisting  on  'the 
simplicity  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus.'  Progress  in  the  appre- 
hension of  truth.  The  things  which  cannot  be  shaken  and 
remain.  My  object  is  to  strengthen  the  cause  of  Christianity 
by  separating  it  from  untenable  propositions.  Truth  may 
be  assailed,  but  will  ultimately  triumph.  1.  The  views  here 
stated  are  those  of  the  Church  of  England.  2.  I  am  estab- 
lishing, not  attacking,  the  true  authority  of  Holy  Scripturo. 
Peril  of  mistaken  estimates,  as  stated  by  Hooker  and  Chil- 
lingworth.     True  and  false  claims 1 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 

WHAT   THE    BIBLE   IS,    AND   IS  NOT 

PAOK 

The  Bible  not  one  homogeneous  book,  but  a  collection  of  writ- 
ings gradually  admitted  into  a  varying  canon.  All  Christians 
alike  believe  in  the  supremacy  of  Scripture  ;  but  every  word 
of  it  is  not  supernaturally  dictated— Nor  infallible.  That 
view  has  been  prolific  of  disaster.  The  Bible  is  a  library. 
Why  called  'sacred'  and  'holy.'  Gradual  growth  of  the 
conception  of  '  the  Bible '  as  one  book.  The  word  '  Bible.' 
Gradual  formation  of  the  Canon.  Philo ;  Josephus ;  New 
Testament  writers  ;  the  Talmud,  Old  Testament,  Apocrypha. 
Uncanonical  books  once  accepted  as  sacred  in  the  Christian 
Church.  The  Homologoumena  and  Antilegomena.  The 
final  test  of  canonicity  was  the  reason  and  conscience  of 
Christians.  Boldness  and  independence  of  Luther.  The 
Old  Testament  Canon.  Ezra.  The  Scribes ;  the  Eabbis ; 
Rabbi  Aqiba.  Difficulties  about  Eeclesiastes,  Ezekiel,  the 
Song  of  Songs.  The  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  the  Kethubim. 
Li  the  New  Testament  Canon  hesitations  about  the  Apoca- 
lypse ;  the  Epistles  of  Jude ;  James ;  2  Peter ;  2,  3  John ;  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  What  is  meant  by  '  the  authority 
of  the  Church.'    The  Scotch  Confession  of  1560  ...     24 


CHAPTER  n 

THE   BIBLE  REPRESENTS  THE  REMAINS  OP  A  WIDER  LITERATURE 

The  Bible  all  that  is  extant  of  a  much  wider  literature.  The 
Old  Testament  represents  the  selected  and  fragmentary  re- 
mains of  Hebrew  literature.  The  New  Testament  represents 
a  selected  portion  of  the  earliest  Christian  literature.  Some 
books  tentatively  received,  finally  rejected.  The  hesitating 
acceptance  of  some  books  as  canonical.  Interpolations. 
The  New  Testament  not  originally  placed  on  a  level  with 
the  Old.  Papias.  Interpolations  rejected  by  critical  an- 
alysis.    Duty  of  progressive  thought.     Dr.  Arnold.     John 


CONTENTS  ix 

PAGE 

Robinson.  John  Goodwin.  Bishop  Butler.  '  Fighting 
against  God.'  The  views  of  all  learned  Germans  as  esti- 
mated by  Rohnert.     Mr.  Gladstone  quoted  .         .        .         .39 

CHAPTER  III 

VARIETY   AND   UNITY 

The  Bible  exhibits  immense  variety  with  essential  unity.  Re- 
ferences of  our  Lord  and  the  Apostles  to  the  Old  Testament. 
Corrected  estimates  of  the  Law  in  the  New  Testament. 
1.  Preciousness  of  the  variety  of  Scriptm-e.  '  Amicta  varie- 
tatibus.'  Everything  for  some,  something  for  all.  Insight 
into  many  minds.  Characteristics  of  their  diversity.  '  As 
universal  as  our  race,  as  individual  as  ourselves.'  '  Homo 
sum.'  Further  illustrations.  Influence  of  the  Bible  on 
human  history.  2.  Unity  of  the  Scriptures,  especially  in 
the  Revelation  of  Christ.  'In  Vetere  Testamento  Novnm 
latet;  in  Novo  Vetus  patet.'  The  true  value  and  message 
of  Scripture  to  be  der  ved  from  its  final  teaching  in  the 
Gospels ;  and  its  true  unity  is  in  Christ        .         .        .         .47 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE  'ALLEGORICAL  METHOD'   OP   EXEGESIS  UNTENABLE 

The  Bible  contains  a  progressive  and  gradual  revelation.  Imper- 
fect enlightenment  of  some  of  the  Old  Testament  writers. 
Defective  characters,  and  partial  knowledge.  How  Christ 
corrected  the  Old  Testament.  Growth  of  the  allegorising 
method.  It  was  borrowed  by  Philo  from  heathen  sources. 
His  theory  of  impassive  trance.  Philo's  manner  of  treating 
the  Law.  Borrowed  from  the  Stoic  method  of  allegorising 
Homer.  Frequent  childishness  and  audacity  of  the  allego- 
rising method.  A  disastrous  legacy  of  the  Jewish  Church 
to  Christian  exegesis.  Connected  with  a  false  theory  of 
inspiration.  The  Talmud  ;  Aqiba  ;  Quenstedt ;  John  Owen  ; 
Burgon.  Philo's  method  continued  by  Origen.  '  The  letter 
killeth'— what?     The  Venerable  Bede.      Sixtus  Senensis. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Specimens  of  Philonian  allegory.  Bishop  Wordsworth  on 
the  murder  of  Sisera.  Swedenborg.  How  Socrates  and 
Plato  dealt  with  Homeric  myths 60 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  BIBLE  NOT  HOMOGENEOUS  IN  ITS  MORALITY 

Varying  tones  of  Scripture.  1.  The  imprecatory  Psalms.  2.  The 
Pentateuch  and  slavery.  3.  Wars  of  extermination.  Israel 
and  the  Midianites.  Such  deeds  may  be  palliated,  but  can- 
not be  in  the  abstract  defended.  4.  Narratives  of  the  Pa- 
triarchs. 5.  Who  tempted  David?  6.  The  immolation  of 
Jephthah's  daughter.  7.  '  The  man  after  God's  own  heart.' 
8.  The  seven  sons  of  Saul.  Heterogeneous  records.  All 
incompleteness  completed  in  the  revelation  of  Christ  .        •    78 

CHAPTER  VI 

ANTITHESES   OP  SCRIPTURE 

1.  Differences  between  the  Law  and  the  Prophets.  Ceremonial- 
ism and  spirituality.  2.  Varying  points  of  view,  amid  sub- 
stantial unity.  3.  Differing  standpoints  of  Apostles.  Luther. 
4.  Heresies  about  the  Old  Testament.  Marcion.  5.  Ob- 
servable differences  of  standpoint  in  the  Old  Testament. 

6.  Annulment  of  the  Levitic  Law.      Luther.      R.  Baxter. 

7.  Illustrations :  (a)  Clean  and  unclean  meats.  (6)  Hand- 
washings,  (c)  Ablutions,  (cl)  Divorce,  (e)  Sabbatic  ob- 
servances. (/)  The  Christ-Spirit,  not  the  Elijah-Spirit.  Two 
anecdotes  :  1.  Ren^e,  Duchess  of  Ferrara,  and  Calvin.  2.  Bal- 
four of  Burley  and  the  minister.  Various  misuse  and  perver- 
sions of  the  Bible.     No  argument  against  its  supremacy      .     92 

CHAPTER  VII 

'VERBAL  DICTATION'  AN   UNTRUE  AND   UNSPIRITUAL   HYPOTHESIS 

The  theory  in  opposition  to  all  evidence.  Unknown  till  after 
the  Reformation.     The  '  Helvetic  Confession '  of  1675.     Ca- 


CONTENTS  xi 

PAGE 

lovius.  Other  post-Reformation  dogmatists  and  their  exag- 
gerated phrases.  1.  Irreverence  of  the  dogma.  2.  Its 
uselessness.  3.  Scriptural  proofs  of  indifference  to  verbal 
reproduction,  i.  Old  Testament  variations,  ii.  Record  of 
the  words  of  Christ,  iii.  St.  Luke's  method  of  composition, 
iv.  Quotations  of  the  Apostles.  The  Septuagint.  v.  Quota- 
tions of  uncertain  origin,     vi.  Conclusion    ....  104 


CHAPTER  Vin 

♦plenary  inspiration' 

The  word  '  inspiration '  is  excessively  vague  and  undefined.  1.  It 
is  not  limited  to  the  Scriptures.  Instances  of  the  use  of  the 
word  in  English  literature.  2.  The  Church  has  never  de- 
fined its  character,  or  laid  down  its  limitations.  In  our 
Prayer  Book  it  is  always  used  of  the  ordinary  influences  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  on  the  minds  of  man.  Milton.  3,  Scripture 
uses  it  in  the  same  sense.  Never  confused  with  supernatu- 
ral infallibility.  4.  Widely  divergent  conceptions  of  inspi- 
ration, i.  The  mechanical  theory,  ii.  The  dynamic  theory. 
iii.  The  theory  of  special  inspiration  in  essentials  only. 
iv.  The  theory  of  general  inspiration.  5.  Supernatural 
dictation  of  Scripture  no  part  of  the  Christian  Faith. 
6.  Scripture  ascribes  general  or  special  inspiration  to  men 
whom  it  depicts  as  still  erring  and  imperfect.  7.  Slavishly 
literal  exaggeration  of  isolated  general  expressions.  8.  Evil 
done  by  indeterminate  words.  9.  Inspiration  does  not  ex- 
clude fallibility  in  non-essentials.  Dr.  Pope.  Archbishop 
Temple.  Dean  Bagot.  10.  The  word  'inspiration'  too 
vague  for  dogmatic  purposes.  11.  The  Bible  itself  shows 
how  widely  variant  must  be  the  conceptions  of  'inspiration.' 
12.  The  correction  of  exaggerated  notions  lies  on  the  sur- 
face of  the  facts.  13.  Faithlessness  of  the  notion  that  we 
have  nothing  but  the  letter  of  a  book  on  which  to  rely. 
What  Scripture  itself  teaches  on  this  subject.  14.  Christ  is 
ever  with  us,  and  God  has  not  ceased  to  speak.  A  Hag- 
gadah  of  the  Rabbis 114 


sdi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  IX 

THE  HIGHER  CRITICISM 

PAOB 

Needless  panic  about  the  Higher  Criticism.  1.  What  is  meant 
by  it.  2.  The  plain  duty  of  close  examination.  3.  Obvious 
facts,  (a)  The  Bible,  to  the  vast  majority,  only  accessible 
in  translations,  (b)  All  translations  more  or  less  inadequate, 
(c)  No  translation  free  from  serious  errors,  (rf)  The  exact 
text  not  always  ascertainable,  (e)  The  Bible  retains  all 
the  forms  of  a  human  literature.  (/)  Various  interpreta- 
tions, ig)  The  Bible  itself  necessitates  criticism,  (h)  Its 
gradual  perfectionment.  4.  These  facts  inevitably  admitted 
by  the  most  earnest  apologists.  Mr.  Gladstone.  5.  Inquiry 
therefore  an  imperative  obligation.  6.  And  the  results  of 
inquiry  must  not  be  hushed  up.  7.  The  Bible  must  be  hu- 
manly interpreted.  8.  No  truth  of  religion  in  the  slightest 
degree  affected.  9.  The  authority  of  Christ  and  His  allu- 
sions to  Scripture,  when  rightly  interpreted,  absolutely 
ratify  these  conclusions.  10.  Christ  and  the  Prophets. 
Conclusions 133 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  BIBLE  CONTAINS  THE  WORD   OP  GOD 

The  formida  of  the  Church  is  'Scriptura  continet  verbum  Dei.' 
Cartwright's  seven  arguments  that '  the  Bible  is  the  word  of 
God.'  They  are  only  tenable  when  applied  to  the  essential 
revelation  of  Scripture.  Luther  never  adopted  the  errone- 
ous formula.  The  Scriptures  as  a  whole  never  claim  to  be 
'  the  word  of  God.'  The  phrase  never  once  applied  to  the 
Bible  as  a  whole,  either  in  the  Old  or  the  New  Testament. 
The  expressions  of  Seriptiire  itself.  The  teaching  of  the 
Universal  Church  on  this  subject  has  always  been  in  accord 
with  that  of  Scripture  itself.  John  of  Damascus.  Doctrine 
of  the  Anglican  Church.  The  difference  between  vague, 
rhetorical,  general  phrases  and  exact  definition.     The  rigid 


CONTENTS  xiii 

PAQB 

identification  of  all  Scripture  with  the  word  of  God  hardly 
earUer  than  1550,  and  it  led  to  monstrous  excesses.  '  Com- 
plectitur,'  not  'est,'  throughout  our  formulse.  Christ  alone 
is 'the  Word  of  God' 142 


CHAPTER  XI 

BIBLICAL   INFALLIBILITY 

Sufficiency  of  Scripture  for  all  things  necessary  to  salvation. 
Dangers  which  arose  from  the  notion  that  it  was  in  every 
word  divinely  iuerrant.  False  inferences.  Infallibility  not 
granted  to  man  except  in  things  necessary  to  salvation. 
1.  No  two  great  branches  of  the  Church  in  rigid  accord  as 
to  what  is  the  Bible.  Primitive  indeterminateness  of  the 
Canon.  The  Apocrypha.  The  Syrian  Canon.  2.  No  agree- 
ment as  to  the  authoritative  text.  In  the  Romish  Church, 
the  Vulgate.  In  the  Greek  Church,  the  Septuagint.  In  the 
Anglican  Church,  the  original  languages.  3.  No  agreement 
as  to  any  rule  of  interpretation.  The  Romish  Church.  The 
Reformed  Churches.  The  Greek  Church.  Thus  no  agree- 
ment as  to  tchat  is  infallible.  The  supposed  infallibility  of 
the  letter  has  been  a  sterile  as  well  as  a  dangerous  dogma. 
Immense  divergencies  of  deduction  from  the  'infallible' 
letter.  'Lucidity 'of  Scripture.  '.Unhappy  di'visions.'  Irre- 
concilability of  conclusions  and  inferences.  Hence  the  in- 
fallibility, if  existent,  has  proved  to  be  unavailable.  Masses 
of  exegetic  material  now  wholly  obsolete      ....  150 

CHAPTER  XII 

DANGEROUS  RESULTS  OF  THE    'SUPERNATURAL  DICTATION'  THEORY 

Judged  by  its  fruits.  The  Bible  and  Science.  Ignorant  and 
wicked  persecutions  of  scientists.  J.  S.  Mill.  History  of 
Science.  Absurdity  of  schemes  which  professed  to  be  lite- 
rally drawn  from  Scripture.  Cosmas,  Pfeiffer,  Whiston,  and 
Burnet ;  Coleridge  quoted,  i.  Roger  Bacon,  ii.  Galileo. 
Kepler,     iii.  Buffon.     iv.  The  Geologists,     v.  Mr.  Darwin. 


xiv  CONTENTS 

PAOE 

vi.  The  objects  of  Gen.  i.  It  corrects  the  agelong  errors  of 
millions  as  to  (i)  Polytheism,  (ii)  Dualism,  (iii)  Panthe- 
ism, (iv)  The  Eternity  of  Matter,  (v)  Atheism.  Nothing 
but  casuistry  and  incongruity  have  resulted  from  the  attempt 
to  transfer  it  from  the  region  of  religious  faith  to  that  of 
rigidly  exact  science 158 

CHAPTEE  Xm 

THE  BIBLE  NOT  THE  ONLY  SOURCE  FROM  WHICH 
WE  CAN  LEARN  OF  GOD 

The  loose  expression  of  Chillingworth.  Definitions  of  Religion. 
In  none  of  these  senses  can  the  Bible  be  a  religion.  Other 
sources  whence  we  may  ascertain  the  will  of  God.  1.  His- 
tory. 2.  Biography.  3.  Nature.  Teachings  of  Nature. 
4.  Conscience.  God  revealed  to  the  Gentiles,  and  to  aU 
human  souls.  Bishop  Ken  on  Socrates.  The  history  of 
Religion.  The  Patriarchs.  The  Bible  a  very  gradual  gift 
to  man.     John  Wallis 170 

CHAPTER  XIV 

MISINTERPRETATION  OF   SCRIPTURE.      TRUE  AND  FALSE 
VIEWS   OF   SCRIPTURE 

1.  Wars  of  Extermination.  Theories  in  explanation  of  the  diffi- 
culty. Dr.  Arnold.  Canon  Mozley.  Bishop  Butler.  Spirit 
of  tenderness  in  the  Mosaic  Law.     The  Word  of  God  to  us. 

2.  Veracity.     Innocent  III.  and  the  Albigensian  Crusades. 

3.  Witchcraft.    Frightful  cruelties.     Advance  of  knowledge. 

4.  Religious  persecution.  Founded  on  gross  perversion  of 
texts.  Repudiated  by  the  early  Christians.  Lactantius. 
Tertullian.  St.  Ambrose.  St.  Martin.  Athanasius  and 
other  Fathers.  Alva  and  Pius  V.  Massacre  of  St.  Bartho- 
lomew. Gregory  XIII.  Cardinal  Orsino.  Inexcusable 
cruelties.  5.  Passive  obedience.  The  Church  of  England. 
6.  Assassination  of  Kings.  7.  Continuous  and  varied  perver- 
sion of  Scripture 182 


CONTENTS  XV 

CHAPTER   XV 

PXTRTHER  MISINTERPRETATION  OF  THE  BIBLE 

PAOB 

Perversion  of  Scripture  not  to  be  charged  against  Scripture. 
Abuse  of  other  good  gifts  of  God.  1.  Such  perversion  is 
easily  avoidable.  2.  The  Bible  itself  the  protest  against  the 
curses  caused  by  its  perversion.  Instances  of  ignorant  mis- 
use. Penance.  Mediaeval  ignorance.  Duty  of  the  exercise 
of  the  reason  and  conscience.  Attempt  to  keep  vernacular 
Bibles  from  the  people.  Wycliffe.  Popes  and  the  Council 
of  Trent.  Various  authorities  quoted.  Conclusion.  The 
Bible  must  be  judged  as  a  whole,  and  not  in  the  light  of  false 
human  theories.  Human  perversions  and  humanly  invented 
theories  have  endangered  the  true  majesty  and  authority  of 
Scripture 204 

CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  WRESTING   OF  TEXTS 

The  Bible  not  a  congeries  of  'texts.'  Misuse  of  'texts.'  Cha- 
racteristics of  Biblical  language.  Endless  building  of  pyra- 
mids on  their  apex.  Exorbitant  inferences.  Origin  of  the 
division  of  the  Bible  into  sections  and  texts.  Multiplication 
of  errors.  Tyndale  quoted.  'The  Bible  says.'  1.  'Our 
vile  body.'  2.  Instance  quoted  by  St.  Augustine.  3.  Papal 
misuse.  4.  '  The  ever-widening  spiral  ergo  from  the  narrow 
aperture  of  single  texts.'  'On  this  rock.'  5.  Literalism. 
'The  power  of  the  keys.'  'Binding  and  loosing.'  6.  'This 
is  my  body.'  7.  'Touch  not;  taste  not;  handle  not.' 
8.  'Eternal  torments.'  9.  'Hell  fire.'  Rule  of  the  Rabbis. 
St.  "Augustine.  The  'Imitatio  Christi.'  St.  Chrysostom. 
Wesley 218 

CHAPTER  XVn 

SCRIPTURE   DIFFICULTIES 

Charges  against  the  Bible.  I.  Coarse  stories  and  phrases, 
i.   The  story  of  Lot.     Its  real  meaning,     ii.  The  story  of 


xvi  CONTENTS 

PAOB 

Hosea.  Its  true  explanation.  II.  Stupendous  violations  of 
the  laws  of  Nature.  No  question  as  to  duly  attested  mira- 
cles, i.  Story  of  the  Fall.  ii.  The  Tower  of  Babel. 
III.  The  story  of  Balaam.  Its  real  significance  and  grandeur. 
rV.  The  sun  standing  still.  The  narrative  prosaically  mis- 
understood. V.  The  story  of  Jonah.  Its  unique  grandeur 
and  real  significance.  The  noblest  specimen  of  Jewish  Hag- 
gadah.  Emblem  of  the  whale.  Parallel  passages.  Miser- 
able littleness  of  the  Prophet  exposed  in  the  narrative.  A 
unique  and  deeply  needed  lesson  to  the  Jews  and  to  all. 
Incident  of  the  whale.  Real  bearing  of  our  Lord's  reference 
to  the  story  of  Jonah.  Analogous  references  in  the  New 
Testament 235 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

SUPREMACY   OF   THE  BIBLE 

Hosts  of  unsuspected  witnesses  to  the  transcendent  authority 
and  preciousness  of  the  Scriptures.  Mighty  and  universal 
influence  which  they  have  exercised  on  all  that  is  gi'eatest 
in  human  life  and  literatiire.  In  them  is  all  the  best  wisdom 
of  the  world.  I.  A  pleiad  of  varied  testimonies,  i.  Car- 
dinal Newman,  ii.  Heinrich  Heine,  iii.  Theodore  Parker. 
iv.  Heinrich  von  Ewald.  v.  Ernest  Renan.  vi.  Professor 
Huxley,  vii.  Matthew  Arnold.  II.  Second  group  of  testi- 
monies, i.  F.  W.  Faber.  ii.  Rousseau,  iii.  Lessing. 
iv.  Goethe,  v.  Emerson,  vi.  Alfred  de  Musset.  vii.  Kue- 
nen.  viii.  Faraday.  III.  Testimonies  of  great  writers. 
i.  Hooker,  ii.  Milton,  iii.  The  Translators  of  1611. 
iv.  Spenser,  v.  Bacon,  vi.  George  Herbert,  vii.  George 
Wither,  viii.  Izaak  Walton,  ix.  Sir  I.  Newton,  x.  Other 
English  writers,  xi.  Sir  W.  Jones,  xii.  Cowper.  xiii.  Col- 
lins, xiv.  John  Wesley,  xv.  Coleridge,  xvi.  Sir  Walter 
Scott.  xvii.  Lord  Maeaulay.  xviii.  Charles  Dickens. 
xix.  Thomas  Carlyle.  xx.  John  Ruskin.  xxi.  Tennyson 
and  Browning,  xxii.  J.  A.  Froude.  xxiii.  Charles  Reade. 
xxiv.  R.  L.  Stevenson,  xxv.  Hall  Caine.  xxvi.  J.  H. 
Green.     IV.  Testimonies  of  statesmen  and  rulers,     i.  Louis 


CONTENTS  xvii 

PAGE 

the  Ninth,  ii.  Henry  the  Sixth,  iii.  John  the  Second  of 
Castile,  iv.  Alonso  the  Fifth  of  Aragon.  v.  Napoleon  I. 
vi.  King  Edward  the  Sixth,  vii.  Lord  Bacon,  viii.  John 
Selden.  ix.  Sir  Matthew  Hale.  x.  Judge  Blackstone,  xi. 
Edmund  Burke,  xii.  William  Wilberforce.  xiii.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone. V.  American  statesmen  and  writers,  i.  President 
J.  Quincy  Adams,  ii.  President  Andrew  Jackson,  iii. 
Senator  W.  B.  Leigh,  iv.  Daniel  Webster,  v.  Secretary 
Seward,  vi.  President  U.  S.  Grant,  vii.  William  Lloyd 
Garrison.  viii.  Mr.  Dana.  ix.  Charles  Dudley  Warner. 
X.  Walt  Whitman,     xi.  George  Peabody     ....  260 

CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  BIBLE  AND   INDIVIDUAL  SOULS. 

Significant  moments  in  life.  The  Bible  a  Urim  'ardent  with 
gems  oracular.'  i.  St.  Augustine,  ii.  Martin  Luther, 
iii.  St.  Francis  Xavier.  iv.  Dr.  Livingstone.  Endless 
proofs  of  the  transcendent  power  of  Scripture  over  the  soul  291 

CHAPTER   XX 

THE  BIBLE  THE  CHIEF  SOURCE  OF  HUMAN   CONSOLATION 

The  Sultan  and  the  Vizier.  Peace  amid  unrest.  '  John  Ingle- 
sant'  quoted.  Contenti  nel  fuoco.  1.  Joy  amid  affliction 
illustrated  by  career  of  St.  Paul.  2.  The  Martyrs.  3.  Even 
the  young.  4.  St.  Perpetua.  5.  Savonarola.  6.  John  Huss. 
7.  Margaret  Wilson.  8.  Scotch  martyrs.  9.  An  incident 
in  the  Indian  Mutiny.  10.  Captain  Allen  Francis  Gardiner. 
11.  The  earthquake  at  Manilla.     12.  The  young  soldier      .  298 

CHAPTER  XXI 

SPECL^L  CONSOLATIONS  OF  SCRIPTURE 

Life's  troubles.  Shakespeare's  experience.  1.  Bereavement, 
2.  Severe  sickness.     Father  Damien.     3.  Everyday  anxie- 


xviii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

ties.  4.  Envy  and  detraction.  5.  Loss  of  all  things.  Dr. 
Duff.  6.  Public  and  private  calamity.  Queen  Louise. 
7.  Religious  despondency.     J.  Bunyan.     Conclusion  .        .310 

CHAPTER  XXn 

THE   BIBLE  AND  THE  NATIONS 

1.  The  Jews.  2.  The  Goths.  3.  Germany.  4.  England. 
5.  America.  6.  Tahiti.  7.  New  Zealand.  8.  North 
American  Indians.  9.  Japan.  10.  The  story  of  Pitcairn's 
Island .        .  320 

CHAPTER  XXin 

CONCLUSION 

Last  words.  Mr.  Ruskin  on  the  Table  of  Contents  of  the  Bible. 
Instructiveness  of  the  Bible.  Its  universal  adaptability. 
One,  yet  manifold.  Must  be  triil)/  possessed.  In  what  spirit 
it  is  to  be  read.  Archbishop  Usher.  Glow-worm  lights. 
The  Psalms.  Yet  even  the  Psalms  surpassed  in  precious- 
ness  by  the  New  Testament.  The  reality  and  intensity  of 
Inspiration  shown  by  its  power  for  the  conversion  of  human 
souls 330 

Index 339 


THE    BIBLE 

ITS  MEANING  AND   SUPREMACY 


INTRODUCTION 

'  Ea  quse  aperta  continet,  quasi  amicus  familiaris,  sine  fuco  ad  cor 
loquitur  indoctorum  atque  doetonitn.'— Aug.  Ej).  iii.  ad  Volus. 

'  Some  too  have  not  integrity  and  regard  enough  to  truth,  to  attend 
to  evidence  which  keeps  the  mind  in  doubt,  perhaps  perplexity,  and 
•which  is  much  of  a  different  sort  from  what  they  expected.'— Bishop 
Butler,  Analogy,  II.  vii. 

'  We  are  bound  never  to  countenance  any  erroneous  opinion,  how- 
ever seemingly  beneficial  in  its  results.'— Archbishop  Whatj;ly  on 
Bacon's  Essays,  p.  11. 

A  CLERGYiviAN  wlio  is  Constantly  required  to  address  num- 
bers  of  his  countrymen  is  bound,  as  far  as  he  can,  to  ascer- 
tain their  actual  thoughts,  and  to  offer  them  something 
less  stereotyped  and  more  real  than  the  current  conven- 
tionalities. He  must  not  live  in  a  fool's  paradise.  If  he 
wishes  to  help  serious  men  to  meet  their  rehgious  difficul- 
ties, he  cannot  succeed  either  by  the  ostrich  policy  of 
ignoring  those  difficulties,  or  by  sliding  over  them  "wdth 
'airy  and  fastidious  levity,'  or  by  trying  to  overwhelm 
them  with  vituperative  phrases.  He  can  adopt  no  policy 
more  fatal  than  the  assumption  of  a  disdainful  infaUibility 
which  denounces  as  '  wicked,'  '  blasphemous,'  or  '  danger- 
ous '  every  conviction  which  diverges  from  his  own  form 
1  1 


2  THE   BIBLE 

of  orthodoxy ;  nor  must  he  assume  that  everything  which 
he  chooses,  however  ignorantly,  to  assert  with  sufficient 
dogmatism  ought  to  be  accepted  with  humble  acquiescence. 
This  was  not  the  pohcy  of  the  early  Christian  apologists. 
They  acted  like  men,  and  spoke  to  men.  They  looked 
their  opponents  full  in  the  face.  They  relied  upon  solid 
arguments,  not  on  authoritative  anathemas.  Instead  of 
meeting  the  taunts  of  pagan  critics,  and  the  arguments  of 
pagan  philosophers,  by  a  conspiracy  of  silence  or  threats 
of  eternal  damnation,  they  confronted  and  grappled  with 
them.  Christianity  was  represented  to  the  heathen  in 
many  false  lights  by  Greek  scoffers,  by  Eastern  heretics, 
by  Roman  satirists.  It  was  the.task  of  such  men  as  Justin 
Martyr,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  and  Origen  to  prove  to  the 
world  that,  in  its  true  aspect,  their  holy  faith  was  not  open 
to  the  objections  accumulated  against  it.  They  relied  upon 
calm  reasoning  for  the  diffusion  of  truth ;  not  upon  nide 
denunciations,  nor  upon  the  torture  and  persecution  to 
which  in  later  ages  Rome  so  universally  resorted.  They 
repudiated  all  violence  as  hateful  to  God.  The  earnest 
reasoner  can  never  injure  the  cause  of  religion;  the  in- 
quisitor and  the  ruthless  dogmatist  have  been  its  ruin  and 
its  curse. 

In  recent  years  much  has  been  written  under  the  as- 
sumption that  Christianity  no  longer  deserves  the  dignity 
of  a  refutation ;  or  that,  at  any  rate,  the  bases  on  which 
it  rests  have  been  seriously  undermined.  The  writings  of 
freetliinkers  are  widely  disseminated  among  the  working 
classes.  Tlie  Church  of  Christ  has  lost  it&  hold  on  multi- 
tudes of  men  in  our  great  cities.  Those  of  the  clergy  who 
are  working  in  the  crowded  centres  of  English  life  can 
hardly  be  unaware  of  the  extent  to  which  scepticism  exists 
among  our  artisans.     Many  of  them  have  been  persuaded 


REASON  AND   CONSCIENCE  3 

to  believe  that  the  Church  is  a  hostile  and  organised  hy- 
pocrisy. There  are  some,  in  all  classes,  who  take  refuge 
from  doubt  in  the  abnegation  of  inquiry  and  the  blind 
acceptance  of  an  unintelligent  traditionalism.  To  quote 
the  phi'ase  of  Cardinal  Newman,  they  treat  their  reason 
as  though  it  were  a  dangerous  wild  beast  to  be  beaten 
back  "with  a  bar  of  u'on.  There  are  others  to  whom  such 
a  resource  would  be  impossible  and  dishonest.  No  reli- 
gious system  wiU  be  permanent  which  relies  mainly  on  the 
emotional  and  the  ceremonial  and  is  not  based  on  the  con- 
victions of  the  intellect.  The  human  reason  is  no  seducing 
enemy,  but  a  heaven-sent  guide.  '  The  spirit  of  man  is  the 
lamp  of  the  Lord.'  ^  Reason,  as  Bishop  Butler  so  truly 
said,  is  the  only  faculty  where wth  we  can  judge  of  any- 
thing, even  of  revelation  itself. ^  Locke  wisely  warns  us 
that  to  attempt  any  subordination  or  sacrifice  of  reason 
to  revelation  is  to  put  out  the  light  of  both :  for  revelation 
can  only  come  to  us  through  the  reason,  and  one  voice 
from  heaven  cannot  utter  oracles  which  are  in  dii-ect  con- 
tradiction to  another.  A  wise  English  divine,  Benjamin 
Wliichcote,  in  his  'Aphorisms,'  says:  'The  sense  of  the 
Church  is  not  a  rule  but  a  thing  ruled.  The  Chm-ch  is 
bound  unto  reason  and  Scripture  and  governed  by  them 
as  much  as  any  individual  person.' ^  'God  alone  is  the 
Lord  of  the  conscience,'  says  the  '  "Westminster  Confession 
(ch.  XX.),  'and  hath  left  it  free  from  the  doctrines  and 
conmiandments  of  men  which  are  in  anything  contrary  to 
this  w^ord,  or  beside  it  in  matters  of  faith  and  worship ;  so 
that  to  believe  such  doctrines,  or  to  obey  such  command- 
ments out  of  conscience  is  to  betray  the  true  liberty  of 
conscience ;  and  the  requiring  of  an  implicit  faith,  and  an 

1  Prov.  XX.  27;  comp.  Rom.  i.  19-21,  32;  ii.  14,  15. 

2  Analogy,  II.  iii.  ^3.  3  Aphorism  921. 


4  THE  BIBLE 

absolute  blind  obedience,  is  to  destroy  liberty  of  conscience 
and  reason  also.' 

He  therefore  who  helps  to  disencumber  Christianity 
from  dubious  or  false  accretions  is  rendering  to  it  a  service 
wliich  may  be  more  urgently  necessary  than  if  he  com- 
posed a  book  of  evidences.  I  have  frequently  observed 
that  the  objections  urged  against  Christianity  are  aimed 
at  dogmas  which  are  no  part  of  the  Christian  faith,  or  are 
in  no  wise  essential  to  its  integrity.  It  is  my  humble  hope 
that  I  shall  be  strengthening  the  cause  of  the  Chnrch,  if 
I  can  succeed  in  showing  that  pnre  religion  and  undefiled 
before  God  even  oui*  Father  is  entirely  separable  from 
tenets  by  which  many  have  supposed  it  to  be  hopelessly 
overweighted.  The  most  effectual  defender  is  often  the 
man  who  succeeds  in  putting  truths  in  theii*  right  perspec- 
tive, and  saves  them  from  being  confounded  with  illusory 
semblances  and  untenable  traditions.  But  I  would  draw 
attention  to  the  fact  that  this  book  is  mainly  positive,  not 
negative.  The  larger  part  of  it  is  occupied  with  proofs 
drawn  from  literature,  history,  and  experience  of  what  the 
Bible  is— its  eternal  validity,  its  unquestionable  supremacy, 
its  inestimable  preciousness.  These  indications  of  its 
grandeur  and  authority  are  not  casuistical,  nor  do  they 
consist  of  bald  assertions.  They  furnish  a  demonstration 
of  the  unparalleled  blessings  which  the  possession  of  the 
Bible  has  in  past  ages  conferred  upon  the  human  race. 
They  show,  from  testimony  which  none  can  dispute,  that 
its  free  study  has  uplifted  nation  after  nation  into  gran- 
deur ;  that  it  has  saved  some  of  the  sweetest  and  loftiest  of 
human  souls  from  despair  and  death ;  that  its  inspiration 
has  kindled  the  purest  fii*es  of  genius,  and  nerved  the  sons 
of  men  to  acts  of  the  most  heroic  valour  and  the  most 
blessed  self-sacrifice.     If  in  any  part  of  the  book  I  seem 


CURRENT  MISCONCEPTIONS  5 

to  take  away  a  false  exaltation  of  the  prerogative  of  the 
Bible,  it  is  only  that  I  may  more  firmly  re-establish  its 
genuine  supereminenee.  Nor  must  it  be  supposed  that  the 
statement  of  our  beliefs  can  only  be  of  use  to  the  unlearned. 
Conversations  with  men  of  science  and  writers  of  the  high- 
est fame  have  long  proved  to  me  how  many  of  the  objec- 
tions entertained  against  the  Catholic  faith  are  based  on 
travesties  of  its  real  tenets.  There  are  many  scientific  and 
literary  men  to  whom  current  misconceptions  create  a  far 
more  insuperable  obstacle  to  the  acceptance  of  the  faith 
than  the  true  doctrines  mth  which  those  misconceptions 
are  confused.  What  fortifies  such  men  in  an  attitude  of 
antagonism  is  often  an  identification  of  Christianity  with 
opinions  wherewith  it  has  no  real  connection.  One  of 
those  opinions  is  that  which  maintains  the  supposed  in- 
errancy and  supernatural  infallibility  of  every  book,  sen- 
tence, and  word  of  the  Holy  Bible.  Such  a  belief,  if  it 
were  really  de  fide,  would  constitute  a  difficulty  as  colossal 
as  it  is  needless  to  tens  of  thousands  of  earnest  men.  Let 
it  at  least  be  known  what  we  do  and  what  we  do  not  hold ; 
what  we  are  and  what  we  are  not  prepared  to  maintain  and 
to  defend.  'Ev  81  (pdei  koX  oXeoaov  ('  Slay  us,  so  it  be  but 
in  the  light'),  prayed  the  old  Homeric  hero.  It  is  only 
imposture  which  shrinks  from  light. 

I  have  already  been  permitted  to  attempt  a  similar  ser- 
vice to  the  cause  of  faith,  and,  by  God's  blessing,  not  with- 
out a  large  success,  attested  by  a  widespread  modification 
of  opinions  once  aU  but  universal.  What  a  poet  has  called 
'  obscene  threats  of  a  bodily  heU,'  when  stated,  as  they  used 
to  be  in  common  manuals  and  by  men  like  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards, in  their  crudest  and  coarsest  form,  were  sufiicient 
to  crush  many  tender  souls  under  a  burden  of  intolerable 
agony,  and  to  drive  many  into  fierce  revolt  against  a  sys- 


6  THE  BIBLE 

tern  which  represented  our  Father  in  Heaven  as  a  relent- 
less Avenger. 

'  Such  a  belief/  said  Archer  Butler,  *  if  realised,  would 
scorch  and  wither  up  the  powers  of  man.'  '  Compared 
with  this  doctrine,'  said  John  Stuart  Mill,  'every  other 
objection  to  Christianity  sinks  into  insignificance.'  In 
spite  of  the  anathemas  which  burst  upon  me  after  the  pub- 
lication of  my  sermons  on  'Eternal  Hope,'  I  have  been 
amply  rewarded  by  the  gratitude  which  for  years  has  been 
expressed  by  men  of  all  ranks,  of  all  ages,  and  of  every 
country  where  the  English  language  is  spoken;  by  the 
testimony  of  men  of  science  from  whose  faith  a  main 
stumbling-block  has  been  removed;  by  the  assurances 
both  of  men  who  had  previously  been  alienated  but  have 
now  been  led  back  to  holy  lives,  and  of  many  of  the  be- 
reaved whose  innocent  faithfulness  had  been  insufficient 
to  remove  the  agonising  doubts  forced  upon  them  by  the 
traditions  of  men.  The  whole  hterature  of  disproof  and 
denunciation  poured  forth  against  me  has  sunk  into 
oblivion ;  and  Dr.  Pusey,  in  a  book  which  professed  to  be 
an  answer  to  my  own,  conceded  absolutely  the  only  three 
points  of  controversy  upon  which  I  had  insisted  as  vital. 
He  frankly  admitted  that  it  is  not  '  of  faith '  to  hold  either 
that  hell  is  a  place  of  material  torments ;  or  that  endless 
agony  will  be  the  doom  of  the  vast  majority  of  mankind ; 
or  that  every  form  of  future  retribution  is  necessarily  end- 
less. Another  eminent  divine,  the  greatest,  in  my  opinion, 
of  all  the  theologians  of  this  generation,  thinking  that  I 
should  quail  under  the  fury  of  '  religious '  animosity,  spon- 
taneously came  to  tell  me  that  he  had  himself  been  teaching 
for  more  than  twenty  years  exactly  the  same  conclusions. 
Both  these  high  authorities  admitted  that  '  views '  which 
were  then  almost  universally  taught,  or  at  any  rate  had 


ATTACKS  ON   CHRISTIANITY  7 

rarely,  if  ever,  been  publicly  repudiated,  since  my  friend 
and  teacher  Professor  Maurice  liad  been  deprived  of  his 
fellowship  at  King's  College  for  impugning  them— were 
not  Catholic  doctrines  at  all,  but  human  opinions  largely 
founded,  in  times  of  ignorance,  on  mistaken  inferences 
from  the  misinterpretation  of  Eastern  metaphors.  Widely 
current  as  such  dogmas  had  become,  there  is  scarcely  any 
age  of  Christianity  in  which  they  have  not  been  more  or 
less  distinctly  repudiated  by  some  saints,  fathers,  and 
teachers  of  the  Church.  Calvinists  may,  if  they  will,  still 
assert  that  God,  by  a  decree  which  their  leader  himself 
characterised  as  'horrible,'  condemns  the  vast  mass  of 
mankind  to  '  writhe  for  ever  in  sulphurous  flames ; '  and 
may  doom  even  unbaptised  infants  *  a  span  long '  to  crawl 
on  the  floor  of  hell.  Such  opinions  concern  themselves 
only.  They  may  assert  them  at  their  pleasure  and  at  their 
peril,  but  every  Christian  is  at  perfect  liberty  to  regard 
them  as  '  idols  of  the  theatre,'  created  by  the  pride  of  sys- 
tem, the  ignorance  of  exegesis,  the  obstinacy  of  opinion, 
and  the  terrors  of  guilt.  No  Christian  is  called  upon  to 
defend  them  when  he  hears  them  branded  as  cruel  or  un- 
just by  the  natural  horror  and  indignation  of  mankind. 

But  it  seems  to  me  that  another  service  is  now  no  less 
imperatively  required. 

No  one  can  take  up  a  book  or  newspaper  which  contains 
the  arguments  of  sceptics,  without  seeing  that  nine-tenths 
of  their  case  is  made  up  of  attacks  upon  the  Bible.  They 
seem  to  think  that  if  they  hold  up  to  ridicule  this  or  that 
narrative,  almost  invariably  of  the  Old  Testament,  they 
have  demonstrated  the  futility  of  the  Christian  religion. 
I  woidd  fain  take  this  quiver  out  of  their  hands,  and  show 
how  its  broken  arrows,  so  far  from  piercing  the  shield  of 
Christianity,  do  but  tinkle  harmlessly  upon  its  rim.     As 


8  THE  BIBLE 

regards  the  true  faith  such  assaults  are  irrelevant.  They 
are  aimed  at  theories  which  are  not  required  in  the  Church 
of  England,  and  have  never  been  held  by  some  of  the 
greatest  Christian  teachers.  What  such  assailants  demo- 
lish so  entirely  to  their  own  satisfaction  is  not  Chi*istianity, 
but  a  mummy  elaborately  painted  in  its  semblance,  or  a 
scarecrow  which  they,  or  others,  have  set  up  in  its  guise. 

I  should  rejoice  with  all  my  heart  if  the  views  of  Scrip- 
ture set  forth  in  the  following  pages  proved  to  intelligent 
readers  that  such  attacks  need  in  no  way  trouble  the  faith 
of  a  Christian.  I  have  been  sometimes  asked  to  speak 
about  the  Bible  to  mass-meetings  of  working  men  in 
London,  Birmingham,  and  other  cities,  and  after  the  ad- 
dress the  subject  has  been  thrown  open  to  free  discussion. 
I  have  always  said  that  I  would  give  a  frank  answer  to 
every  objection  which  might  be  raised,  if  I  had  an  answer 
to  give ;  and  that  if  I  were  unable  to  meet  the  objection  I 
should  say  so  like  an  honest  man.  The  attacks  made  were 
a  singular  revelation  of  modes  of  thought  with  which  the 
clergy  rarely  come  in  contact.  To  many  of  my  hearers 
there  seemed  to  be  no  medium  between  the  doctrine  of 
'  verbal  dictation '  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  opinion  that 
the  Bible  contains  a  mass  of  immorality  and  imposture  on 
the  other.  Only  one  or  two  of  the  speakers  have  ever 
adopted  an  absolutely  hostile  tone,  but  there  was  scarcely 
one  argument  which  did  not  cease  to  be  valid  when  it  was 
shown  that  no  doctrine  about  Biblical  inerrancy  has  ever 
formed  any  necessary  part  of  the  faith  of  Christendom. 

When  men  who  have  drifted  from  Christianity  do  not 
accord  their  full  confidence  to  a  speaker  they  are  apt  to 
fancy  that  he  is  playing  fast  and  loose  with  them ;  that  he 
is  denying  or  accepting  just  what  may  happen  to  suit  the 
exigencies  of  the  immediate  controversy.     They  say,  'If 


ATTACKS  ON   CHRISTIANITY  9 

you  do  not  hold  these  views,  every  other  clergyman  does.' 
In  this  they  are  mistaken ;  but  their  mistake  is  excusable 
because  there  has  often  been  so  little  coiirage  among  the 
clergy  to  speak  out  boldly  what  multitudes  of  them  really 
think.  When  my  sermons  on  'Eternal  Hope'  were 
preached,  a  leading  London  clergyman  said  to  me,  '  You 
have  only  spoken  out  what  many  of  us  have  long  really 
held,'  I  have  learnt  by  experience  that  it  costs  something 
to  speak  out,  but  the  man  who  maintains  an  interested  or 
pusiUanimous  reticence  is  not  a  faithful  servant.  If  he  is 
influenced,  either  by  the  fear  of  injuring  his  own  interests, 
or  by  shrinking  from  the  odious  attacks  of  party  hatred— 
if  he  stoops  to  use  language  in  one  sense  which  he  knows 
will  be  understood  in  another— he  is  untrue  to  the  exam- 
ple of  Christ  and  His  Apostles.  He  is  trying  to  serve  God 
and  mammon.  He  is  treating  the  verities  of  religion  as 
though  they  were  only  meant  to  be  vested  in  effeminate 
euphuisms.  Some  may  be  influenced  by  another  motive. 
They  are  unwilling,  they  say,  '  to  distm-b  the  faith '  of  any. 
As  if  to  remove  error  were  to  disturb  faith !  As  if  a  faith 
built  on  error  ought  to  be  left  for  ever  undisturbed  !  As  if 
the  twilight  of  ignorance  were  better  than  the  revealing 
day  !  St.  Gregory  the  Great  truly  said  that, '  If  a  scandal 
be  caused  by  the  utterance  of  truth,  better  the  creation  of 
the  scandal  than  the  suppression  of  the  truth.'  God  is  a 
God  of  truth.  He  who  thinks  to  serve  God  hy  the  offer- 
ing of  falsehoods,  or  of  half-truths,  is  as  if  he  offered 
swine's  flesh  upon  the  altar.  The  City  of  God  will  have 
no  stability  if  instead  of  being  founded  on  jasper  and 
adamant  it  is  simply  piled  upon  loosely  shifting  sands. 
Christians  must  make  their  choice  between  freely  admit- 
ting that  there  is  a  human,  and  therefore  a  fallible,  element 
in  some  of  the  sixty-six  books  which  we  call  the  Bible ;  or 


10  THE   BIBLE 

the  adoption  of  '  reconciliations '  which  may  be  '  accepted 
with  ignominious  rapture/  but  which  are  so  transparently 
casuistical  as  to  shock  the  faith  of  men  who  are  unpreju- 
diced. '  I  know  no  more  encouraging  proof/  said  Maurice, 
'  that  the  God  of  truth  is  still  among  us,  much  as  we  are 
offending  Him  with  our  lives,  than  that  the  faith  of  scien- 
tific men  in  the  Bible  has  not  wholly  perished,  when  they 
see  how  small  om'S  is,  and  by  what  tricks  we  are  sustaining 
it.'  ^  *  Those  who  hold  the  traditional  view  have  not  been 
free  from  fault,'  says  Canon  Girdlestone.  '  We  have  been 
afraid  of  allowing  textual  corruption,  late  editorial  work, 
the  use  of  ordinary  materials,  and  human  ways  of  putting 
tilings.  We  have  confused  iuspu-ation  with  omniscience, 
and  have  forgotten  that  the  treasure  of  sacred  truths  is 
committed  to  earthen  vessels.  We  have  minimised  incon- 
sistencies and  refused  to  face  difficulties.  We  have  im- 
ported modern  science  into  ancient  books,  and  have  sought 
to  shut  up  those  questions  about  age  and  authorship  which 
God  in  His  providence  has  left  open.'  ^  But  those  who  are 
misled  into  the  supposition  that  they  must  believe  every 
word  of  the  Bible  to  be  supernaturally  sacred  and  divinely 
infallible,  may  be  helped  by  two  considerations  which  will 
serve  to  show  that  even  if  many  still  hold  such  a  view  it 
is  not  binding  upon  any  Christian. 

1.  For  the  Catholic  faith  means  the  faith  of  the  Catho- 
lic, the  Universal  Church,  as  expressed  in  the  creeds  of  the 
Church. 

Opinions  may  be  held  by  all  the  members  of  any  one 
branch  of  the  Christian  Church ;  but  if  they  are  rejected 
by  other  acknowledged  branches  of  the  Church  they  are 
not  an  essential  part  of  Christian  faith. 

1  Mam-ice,  TJie  Bible  and  Science,  p.  37. 

2  Girdlestone,  Foundation  of  the  BihJc,  p.  196. 


OPINIONS  11 

For  instance,  the  Roman  Church  believes  in  the  efficacy 
of  prayers  to  the  Virgin  and  the  Saints ;  the  Christians  of 
the  fii'st  three  centuries  held  no  such  belief ;  the  creeds  do 
not  require  it ;  the  Reformed  Churches  regard  it  as  entirely 
baseless.  Therefore  it  is  no  part  of  the  Cathohc  faith. 
To  attack  or  to  disprove  it  is  not  to  attack  a  truth  of 
Christianity,  but  only  to  disprove  an  opinion  held  among 
some  Christians. 

2.  Again,  an  opinion  may  be  current  among  Christians 
for  hundreds  of  years ;  it  may  be  held  by  the  vast  majority 
of  teachers  and  believers  in  any  particular  age;  it  may 
have  been  held  by  their  predecessors  for  many  ages ;  yet 
if  it  has  been  repudiated  by  recognised  branches  of  the 
Church,  and  has  never  found  a  place  in  the  Catholic  for- 
mularies, it  remains  an  opinion  j  it  is  not  an  essential  part 
of  the  Christian  faith. 

i.  For  instance :  all  Christians  alike  believe  in  the  Atone- 
ment, and  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  Particular  theories  of 
the  Atonement,  and  of  the  manner  in  which  sins  are  for- 
given, have  been  prevalent  in  every  age,  and  have  some- 
times united  the  suflfi-ages  of  most  Christians.  Yet  if  they 
have  never  been  formally  sanctioned  they  are  opinions 
only,  not  matters  of  faith.  Thus,  in  early  days,  some  lead- 
ing Fathers  and  teachers  seized  upon  the  metaphor  of 
ransom,  used  in  Scripture  to  express  the  results  of  forgive- 
ness to  guilty  man.  Needlessly  pressing  the  metaphor 
into  spheres  to  which  it  was  not  intended  to  apply,  and 
which  transcend  the  ken  of  man's  reason,  they  asked  to 
u'hom  was  the  ransom  paid  ?  They  decided,  most  errone- 
ously and  unwarrantably,  that  it  was  paid  to  the  devil.^ 
That  opinion  prevailed  in  the  Church  all  but  universally 
for  a  thousand  5'ears,  from  the  days  of  St.  Irenasus  to  the 

1  Irenseus  based  his  error  on  Heb.  ii.  14. 


12  THE  BIBLE 

days  of  St.  Anselm.  St.  Anselm,  in  his  book  '  Cur  Deus 
Homo?'  decisively  rejected  it,^  and  though  it  had  been 
held  so  long  and  so  all  but  universally,  yet,  being  an 
opinion  only  and  not  a  doctrine  of  the  faith,  it  rapidly 
crumbled  into  dust ;  it  now  finds  not  one  defender ;  and  the 
faith  of  Christians  was  left  exactly  where  it  was. 

ii.  I  may  add  an  instance  still  more  crucial.  The  sole 
important  difference  between  the  Western  (or  Latin)  and 
the  Eastern  (or  Greek)  Church  as  regards  the  creeds  is  in 
the  single  word  ^^iT/ogue'— 'proceeding  from  the  Father 
and  the  SonJ  This  last  expression,  ^Filioque/  was  added 
to  the  Nicene  Creed  at  the  Provincial  Council  of  Toledo, 
in  Spain,  a.d.  589,  and  afterwards  at  a  Council  of  Charle- 
magne's Bishops  at  Frankfort  in  794.  Charlemagne  wished 
the  Pope  Leo  III.  to  insert  the  word  '  Filioque,''  and  the  Pope 
refused.  The  word,  however— apparently  without  any 
formal  authorisation— crept  into  the  Nicene  Creed,  in  spite 
of  the  vehement  protests  of  the  Eastern  Church.  That 
Church  insisted  that  when  the  Council  of  Constantinople 
(a.d.  381)  had  added  to  the  Nicene  Creed  'proceeding  from 
the  Father,'  and  that  addition  had  been  accepted  by  the 
Council  of  Ephesus  (a.d.  431),  a  decree  was  passed,  under 
an  anathema,  that  no  one  should  ever  make  any  further 
addition  to  the  Creed.  It  has  been  supposed  by  some  that 
the  whole  dispute  depends  on  the  difference  of  meaning 
between  the  Greek  word  for  'proceeding'  {eKnopevofievov) 
and  the  Latin  word  {procedens).  The  Greek  Church  does 
not  deny  that  in  the  sense  of  the  Latin  ivord  the  Sj)irit  pro- 
ceeds from  the  Son,  but  it  does  not  admit  the  addition  to 

1  St.  Anselm  rightly  argued  that  the  devil  could  have  no  rights 
over  man,  and '  quamvis  homo  juste  a  diabolo  torqueretur,  ipse  tamen 
ilium  injuste  torquebat.'  Cur  Deus  Homo  ?  i.  7 ;  Oxenham,  On  the 
Atonement,  p.  114. 


OPINIONS  13 

the  Creed.  '  Yet,'  says  Bishop  Pearson, '  they  acknowledged 
under  another  Scriptm-al  expression  the  same  thing  which 
the  Latins  understand  by  procession,  though  they  stuck 
more  closely  to  the  phrase  and  laug-uac^e  of  the  Scripture ; 
and  therefore  when  they  said  "He  proceedeth  from  the 
Father  "  they  also  added  "  He  received  of  the  Son."  ^  After- 
wards, however,  divers  of  the  Greeks  expressly  denied  the 
procession  from  the  Son.'  ^ 

iii.  Once  more.  The  notion  that  intolerance  is  a  duty, 
and  that  it  is  not  only  right  but  imperative  to  persecute, 
torture,  and  burn  those  whom  the  dominant  Church  of  the 
day  may  regard  as  heretics,  prevailed  for  centuries.  It 
was  acted  upon  in  age  after  age  to  the  suppression  of  God's 
truth  and  the  unspeakable  danger  of  the  faith  in  the  name 
of  which  such  horrors  and  crimes  have  been  perpetrated. 
This  belief  is  stiU  avowed  by  the  Romish  Church ;  yet  it 
involves  nothing  less  than  a  crime  against  the  Spirit  and 
the  Gospel  of  Christ.  It  was  abhorrent  to  primitive  Chris- 
tianity, and  in  spite  of  its  thousand  years  of  dominance  it 
is  rightly  repudiated  by  all  the  Reformed  Churches  of  the 
present  day. 

Opinions  therefore  may  be  held  by  Christians,  even  by 
the  majority  of  Christians,  and  by  all  or  nearly  all  of  their 
accredited  teachers  in  any  particidar  age,  and  for  succes- 
sive ages,  and  yet  may  be  disputable  opinions ;  may  even 
be  opinions  which,  when  rightly  apprehended  in  the  broad- 
ening and  revealing  light,  are  seen  to  be  erroneous  and 
even  hateful.  But  such  opinions  form  no  part  of  Chris- 
tianity.    The  defence  of  Christianity  is  unconcerned  with 

1  roil  T'lov  lajifiavov.     Epiphan.  Hier.  Ixix. 

2  Pearson,  On  the  Creed,  Art.  viii.  ;  Waterland,  Hist,  of  Athan. 
Creed,  Works,  iv.  133 ;  Bishop  Harold  Browne,  TJiirty-nine  Articles, 
114-117. 


14  THE  BIBLE 

them.  We  may  repudiate  them,  while  yet  we  hold  fast  to 
the  great  primitive  creeds  of  Christendom,  and  believe 
with  all  our  hearts  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ  the  Son  of  God, 
the  Saviour  of  the  World,  and  that  the  Gospel  is  a  direct 
revelation  from  the  God  of  all  consolation  to  the  suffering 
and  sinful  family  of  man. 

It  should  then  be  clear  that  Christianity,  as  set  forth  iu 
her  universal  creeds,  may  be  one  thing ;  and  Christianity, 
as  identified  with  the  opinion  of  even  the  majority  of 
Christians  about  a  multitude  of  subjects  at  any  given  time, 
may  be  quite  another. 

God's  education  of  us  never  ceases.  The  fundamental 
truths  of  Christianity  are  unaltered  and  unalterable ;  but 
the  points  of  view  from  which  they  are  regarded,  and  the 
thousands  of  minor  propositions  which  have  often  been 
attached  to  them,  are  altering,  and  have  altered  from  age 
to  age.  They  need  to  be  constantly  re-examined  and  re- 
vised. For  we  beheve  that  Christ  is  ivWi  us,  not  absent 
from  us.  He  is  living,  not  dead.  The  inspu-ation  of  His 
Spirit  is  a  continuous  influence,  an  ever-brightening  sun- 
beam, not  an  exhausted  spasm  of  energy,  or  a  flash  of 
vanished  light.  It  is  a  beam  in  the  darkness  which  must 
broaden  and  brighten  more  and  more  into  the  bound- 
less day. 

One  of  the  most  urgent  duties  of  good  men  in  the  pre- 
sent day  is  the  simplification  of  religion  into  its  primitive 
and  essential  elements ;  its  purification  from  centuries  of 
alien  influx;  its  disseverance  from  elements  which  owed 
their  origin,  not  to  the  teaching  of  its  Divine  Founder,  but 
to  Pagan  or  Jewish  survivals,  to  Eastern  mysticism,  and 
to  Manichean  error.  It  has  suffered  unspeakably  from  the 
ambitions,  inventions,  and  usurpations  of  men ;  and  most 
of  all  from  the  confusions,  corruptions,  and  ignorance 


CHANGING  PHASES   OF  THOUGHT         15 

which  during  the  Dark  Ages,  and  under  the  sway  of  tlie 
mediaeval  Papacy,  invaded  the  God-given  liberty  of  Chris- 
tians ;  quenched,  or  tried  to  quench,  the  light  which  came 
from  heaven ;  subjected  free  human  souls  to  the  cruel,  de- 
graded, and  effeminating  bondage  of  ignorant  teachers ; 
and  utterly  marred  the  truth  and  beautiful  simplicity  of 
the  primeval  Gospel. 

An  unprogressive  Christianity  will  be  of  necessity  a 
stagnant  and  corrupt  Christianity.  'He  hath  promised, 
saying,  Yet  once  more  will  I  make  to  tremble  not  the  earth 
only,  but  also  the  heaven.  And  this  word,  Yet  once  more, 
signifieth  the  removing  of  those  things  that  are  shaken,  as 
of  things  that  have  been  made,  that  those  things  which 
are  not  shaken  may  remain.'  Opinions  about  Christianity, 
and  systems  and  churches  which  have  built  upon  such 
opinions  their  superstructures  of  wood,  hay,  and  stubble, 
may  again  and  yet  again  be  shaken  to  the  dust ;  but  true 
Christianity  cannot  be  shaken,  for  it  is  an  eternal  thing. 

Let  Christians  then  beware  of  the  inveterate  obstinacy, 
the  passionate  prejudices,  and,  above  all,  the  furious  and 
blood-stained  idolatry  of  false  traditions,  which  render 
impossible  the  acceptance  of  new  truths.  Those  new 
truths,  which  cause  the  general  opinions  of  Christians  on 
many  subjects  to  differ  widely  from  age  to  age,  are  noth- 
ing less  than  a  continuous  revelation.  Truth  is  not  a 
stagnant  pool,  but  an  ever-streaming  fountain ;  the  river 
is  eternal,  but  its  waves  are  perpetually  changing,  and 
being  constantly  purified  and  renewed.  '  Even  within  the 
Church,'  says  one  of  our  most  eminent  writers,  '  the  fulness 
of  truth  was  only  slowly  recognised  ;  and  the  earliest  heresy 
was  simply  the  perverse  and  obstinate  retention  of  that 
which  had  once  been  the  common  belief,  after  that  a  wider 
view  had  been  sanctioned  by  a  Divine  authority.' 


16  THE  BIBLE 

In  the  following  pages  I  wish  to  show  that  the  true  at- 
titude of  Christians  towards  the  Bible  is  not  that  which, 
by  many  antagonists  of  the  Christian  faith,  it  is  assumed 
to  be.  It  is  no  part  of  the  Christian  faith  to  maintain  that 
every  word  of  the  Bible  was  dictated  supernaturally,  or  is 
equally  valuable,  or  free  from  all  error,  or  on  the  loftiest 
levels  of  morality  as  finally  revealed.  There  are  myriads 
of  faithful  Christians  who  would  at  once  declare  their  in- 
ability to  accept  any  such  doctrine.  To  them  Christianity 
is  entirely  unburdened  by  the  numberless  difficulties  of  all 
kinds — psychological,  chronological,  historical,  scientific, 
religious,  and  moral— which  would  be  necessarily  involved 
in  the  defence  of  such  an  h}^othesis.  I  shall  make  the 
defence  of  Christianity  infinitely  more  simple  and  more 
secure  if  I  show  that  such  views  form  no  part  of  the  faith. 
I  do  not  deny  that  such  a  doctrine  of  inspiration  has  often 
been  popularly  expressed  in  the  loose,  inaccurate  rhetoric 
of  Fathers  and  teachers ;  and  often  by  men  who  show,  in 
more  serious  passages,  that  it  does  not  represent  their  true 
and  accurate  conviction.  But  no  such  view  has  ever 
formed  any  part  of  the  Catholic  creeds  of  Clmstendom. 

In  order,  then,  to  support  the  faith  of  all  who  are  now 
shaken  by  assaults  on  the  Bible,  I  wish  to  illustrate  what 
the  Bible  is,  what  the  Bible  is  not.  That  my  statements 
will  be  attacked  can  make  no  difference  in  my  duty ;  that 
many  readers,  and  especially  those  who  have  been  left  by 
their  teachers  in  an  ignorance  which  takes  itself  for  know- 
ledge, will  at  first  disagree  with  much  that  I  say,  is  certain. 
I  hold  it  to  be  no  less  certain  that  the  opinions  here  main- 
tained will  become  those  of  the  whole  Christian  world ;  and 
I  hold  this  because  they  are  in  accordance  with  a  general 
drift  of  evidence  which  is  daily  acquiring  more  and  more 
the  volume  and  majesty  of  an  ocean  tide. 


ADVANCING   KNOWLEDGE  17 

For  while  the  tired  waves,  vainly  breaking, 

Seera  here  no  painful  inch  to  gain, 
Far  back,  through  creeks  and  inlets  making, 

Comes  silent,  flooding  in,  the  main  : 
And  not  by  eastern  windows  only, 

When  daylight  comes,  comes  in  the  light ; 
In  front  the  sun  climbs  slow,  how  slowly,  — 

But  westward,  look,  the  land  is  bright !  i 

I  need  only  add  two  remarks. 

First,  I  do  not  deviate  in  the  smallest  particular  from 
the  definite  teaching  of  the  Church  of  Englaud,-  or  of 
the  Catholic  Church  in  general,  on  the  subject  here 
handled.  I  repudiate  no  single  proposition  respecting 
Scripture  on  which  real  Christian  doctrine  ever  insisted. 

1  A.  H.  Clough. 

2  Our  Christian  liberty  on  this  question  was  legally  vindicated  by 
Dr.  Lushington  and  Lord  "Westbury  in  the  'Essays  and  Reviews 
Case,'  1862-63.  'In  the  first  hearing  of  the  case,  before  the  Court 
of  Arches,  Dr.  Lushington  said :  "  Provided  that  the  Articles  and 
Formularies  are  not  contravened,  the  law  lays  down  no  limits  of 
construction,  no  rule  of  interpretation,  of  the  Scriptures."' 

At  the  final  trial,  on  appeal  before  the  Privy  Coimcil,  Lord  "West- 
bury  pronounced  the  freedom  of  the  English  people  and  clergy  yet 
more  emphatically.  He  said  :' We  are  confined  .  .  .  to  the  question 
whether  in  them  [the  Articles]  the  Church  has  affirmed  that  any  part 
of  the  Book  of  Scripture  was  written  under  the  inspiration  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  and  is  the  Word  of  God. 

'  Certainly  this  doctrine  is  not  involved  in  the  statements  of  the 
6th  Article,  that  Holy  Scripture  contains  all  things  necessary  to 
salvation.  But  inasmuch  as  it  does  so  from  the  revelations  of  tlie 
Holy  Spirit,  the  Bible  may  be  denominated  "holy"  and  be  said  to 
be  "the  Word  of  God,"  "God's  Word  written,"  or  "Holy  Writ;" 
terms  which  cannot  be  affirmed  to  be  distinctly  predicated  of  every 
statement  and  representation  contained  in  every  part  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments. 

'  The  framers  of  tlie  Articles  have  not  used  the  word  "  inspiration  " 
as  applied  to  the  Holy  Scriptures,  nor  have  they  laid  down  anything 
2 


18  THE  BIBLE 

I  shall  not  state  one  single  view  which  is  untenable  by 
Christian  men  in  any  great  division  either  of  the  Eastern 
or  the  Western  Church.  For  every  assertion  which  I  make 
I  can  produce  the  authority  of  divines  of  unimpeachable 
soundness,  whose  right  to  be  regarded  as  orthodox  has 
never  been  challenged,  and  some  of  whom  are  among  the 
acknowledged  Fathers  and  canonised  Saints  of  the  Church 
of  God. 

Secondly,  I  may  be  liable  to  the  careless  and  ignorant 
taunt  that  I  have  been  '  attacking  the  Bible.'  The  guilt 
of  such  a  falsehood  must  rest  on  those  who  make  it.  St. 
Paul,  in  answer  to  the  charge  that  he  had  been  nullifying 
the  Law  of  Moses,  replied, '  Do  we  then  make  void  the  Law 
through  faith?  Nay,  we  establish  the  Law.'  The  spirit 
of  that  reply  is  applicable  to  all  that  I  shall  here  say  of  the 

as  to  the  nature,  extent,  or  limits  of  that  operation  of  the  Holy- 
Spirit.' 

In  a  letter  to  the  Times  quoting  these  judgments,  Mr.  Fitzroy  adds : 
'  It  may  be  worth  stating,  in  illustration  of  this,  that  at  the  West- 
minster Assembly  of  1643  it  actually  was  proposed  to  make  such  use 
of  the  word  "  inspiration "  and  to  lay  down  something  "  as  to  the 
nature,  extent,  or  limits  of  the  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit."  It  was 
there  suggested  to  add  the  enumeration  of  the  books  of  the  New 
Testament  to  those  of  the  Old,  and  to  conclude  with  these  words : 
"All  which  books,  as  they  are  commonly  received,  we  do  receive, 
and  acknowledge  them  to  be  by  the  inspiration  of  God,  and  in  that 
regard  to  be  of  most  certain  credit  and  highest  authority."  The 
rejection  of  this  amendment  shows  that  even  at  that  date  Eng- 
lish Churchmen  did  not  feel  justified  in  closing  their  own  or  their 
children's  ears  to  the  voice  of  God  in  nature  and  in  human  rea- 
son.' 

I  may  also  refer  to  Sir  J.  F.  Stephen's  speech  in  the  Court  of 
Arches,  in  which  there  is  a  catena  of  evidence  on  this  subject ;  to 
Paley's  Evidences,  vol.  iii.  ch.  iii. ;  Alford,  Greelc  Neic  Testament,  i. 
19 ;  Maurice,  Tlie  Bible  and  Science,  p.  172 ;  and  to  multitudes  of  high 
authorities  which  will  be  quoted  in  the  following  pages. 


CHURCH  DOCTRINE  19 

Bible.  ^  I  have  attacked  nothing  which  is  tenable,  least  of 
all  the  Bible,  which  year  by  year  grows  to  me  more  in- 
estimably precious,  and  which  on  the  contrary  I  best  de- 
fend by  saving  it  from  the  wounds  wherewith  it  has  been 
wounded  in  the  house  of  its  friends.  The  Bible  furnished 
the  main  training  of  my  youth ;  it  is  the  chief  blessing  and 
most  indefeasible  consolation  of  my  advancing  age.  I  have 
devoted  to  its  elucidation  the  laboui*  of  the  best  years  of 
my  life.  At  my  ordination  I  vowed  that  I  would  be  '  dili- 
gent in  reading  of  the  Holy  Scripture,  and  of  such  studies 
as  help  to  the  knowledge  of  the  same ;'  and  that  vow  to 
the  best  of  my  ability  I  have  endeavoured  to  fulfil.  But 
there  is  a  style  of  defence  which  is  more  perilous  and  less 
faithful  than  the  worst  attack.  It  was  the  object  of  Rabbis 
and  Pharisees  to  maintain,  to  expand,  to  deify  the  Mosaic 
Law ;  '  to  construct,'  as  they  phrased  it,  '  a  hedge  about 
the  Law.'  -  They  treated  our  Lord  as  One  who  '  attacked ' 
their  law.^     How  did  He  Himself  view  what  they  regarded 

1  'Critical  investigations  concern  really  not  the  fact  of  revelation, 
but  its  mode,  or  form,  or  course  ;  upon  faith  and  practice  they  have 
no  bearing  whatever.'— Prof.  Driver,  Cont.  Rev.  Feb.  1896. 

2  rirlc  Aboth,  I.  i.,  'Make  a  fence  for  the  Law;'  iii.  20,  Aqiba 
said  :  '  Tradition  is  a  fence  to  the  Torah ; '  '  Make  a  mishmercth  to  my 
mishmcreth,'  Lev.  xviii.  30 ;  see  Taylor,  Sayings  of  the  Jewish  Fathers, 
pp.  25,  68. 

3  The  Rabbis  said  that  the  Law  had  existed  974  generations  before 
the  world  was  created,  Shahbath,  f.  88.  2;  Aboth  d'  Fabbi  Xatha7i,  31. 
'  On  account  of  tlie  Law  the  whole  of  the  world  was  created,'  Tsc-c»ah 
Ure-cnah  (Hershon,  Talm.  Miscellany,  p.  316).  For  sjiecimens  of  the 
exaltation  of  the  Torah  by  the  JeM's  see  "Weber,  Syst.  d.  altsy)tag. 
Palast.  Theol  1-60 ;  Wildeboer,  Tlic  Origin  of  the  Old  Testament  Canon 
(E.T.),  pp.  94-98.  They  called  the  Law  'the  jewel  of  jewels;' 
'  Whoever  asserts  that  Moses  wrote  so  much  as  one  verse  out  of  his 
own  knowledge  is  a  contemner  of  the  Word  of  God,'  Sanhedrin, 
f.  99.  a. 


20  THE   BIBLE 

as  His  '  attack '  of  it  ?  He  said, '  Think  not  that  I  am  come 
to  destroy  the  Law  or  the  Prophets.  I  am  not  come  to 
destroy  but  to  fulfil.'  What  did  He  think  of  their  defence 
of  it  ?  After  exposing  the  futility  and  falsehood  of  their 
'  traditions  of  the  elders/  He  indignantly  quoted  the  de- 
nunciation of  Isaiah :  '  In  vain  do  they  worship  me,  teach- 
ing for  doctrines  the  commandments  of  men,'  Resorting 
—as  priests  and  Pharisees  have  so  constantly  done— to 
the  syllogism  of  violence,  they  crucified  the  Lord  of  Glory. 

Similarly  they  cursed,  persecuted,  slandered,  and  tried 
to  mui'der  St.  Paul,  on  the  plea  that  he  taught  men  to 
ignore  the  Divine  sanctity  of  the  Levitic  ordinances.  But 
St.  Paul's  answer  was  that  he  was  commissioned  to  cut 
away  from  the  Law  its  alien  accretions  and  its  dead  or 
perishing  rudiments,  that  he  might  perpetuate  its  eternal 
holiness  and  justice.  '  The  Gospel  itself,'  said  the  holy  and 
learned  Neander,  'rests  on  an  immovable  rock,  while 
human  systems  of  theology  are  everywhere  undergoing  a 
pui'ifying  process.' 

I  place,  then,  in  the  forefront  of  this  book  the  declara- 
tion of  my  most  solemn  reverence  and  love  for  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  and  of  my  heartfelt  acceptance  of  every  mes- 
sage of  God  contained  therein.  It  is  because  1  thus  deeply 
reverence  the  Bible,  and  hecanse  I  thus  absolutely  accept 
the  Word  of  God  which  it  contains,  that  I  refuse  to  be 
guilty  of  the  blasphemy  of  confusing  the  words  of  men 
with  the  Word  of  God,  or  the  inferences  of  ignorant 
teachers  with  the  messages  of  God.  I  say  with  the  fervid 
Chillingworth,  'Take  away  this  presumptuous  imposing 
of  the  senses  of  men  on  the  Word  of  God ;  of  the  special 
senses  of  men  on  the  general  words  of  God,  and  laying 
them  on  men's  conscience  together,  under  the  equal  penalty 
of  death  and  damnation.     This  deifying  our  own  inter- 


CHRIST  AND   THE   LAW  21 

pretations  and  tyrannous  enforcing  them  upon  others; 
this  restraining  of  the  Word  of  God  from  that  latitude  and 
generaUty,  and  the  understanding  of  men  from  that  liberty 
wherein  Christ  and  the  Apostles  left  them,  is  and  hath  been 
the  only  fountain  of  all  the  schisms  in  the  Church,  and 
that  which  makes  them  immortal ;  the  common  incendiary 
of  Christendom  which  tears  in  pieces  not  the  coat  but  the 
members  of  Christ,  ridente  Tnrca  nee  dolente  Judaeo.  Take 
away  this  persecuting,  burning,  cui'sing,  damning  of  men 
for  not  subscribing  to  the  words  of  men  as  the  words  of 
God ;  require  of  Christians  only  to  beheve  Christ,  and  to 
call  no  man  master  but  Him  only.'  ^ 

I  desii'e  to  base  the  claims  of  Scripture  on  true  grounds, 
and  not  on  false  prerogatives  supported  by  a  specious  and 
repellent  casuistry. 

In  thus  doing  I  follow  the  initiative  of  the  greatest  of 
our  English  divines ;  notably  of  one  of  the  wisest  of  them 
all— Richard  Hooker.  After  pointing  out  that  there  are 
concerning  the  sufficiency  of  Scripture  two  opinions,  each 
extremely  opposite  to  the  other,  and  each  repugnant  to 
the  truth— that  of  Rome,  which  teaches  Scripture  to  be 
insufficient  without  tradition ;  and  that  of  the  Puritans, 
which  held  that  no  act  of  life  and  no  triviality  of  Church 
order  was  la^vful  without  direct  Scripture  authority— he 
concludes  the  second  book  of  his  'Ecclesiastical  Polity' 
with  these  words : 

'  Whatsoever  is  spoken  of  God,  or  things  appertaining 
to  God,  otherwise  than  truth  is,  though  it  seem  an  honour, 
it  is  an  injury.  And  as  incredible  praises  given  unto  men 
do  often  abate  and  impair  the  credit  of  their  deserved 
commendation,  so  we  must  likewise  take  gi-eat  heed,  lest, 
in  attributing  to  Scripture  more  than  it  can  have,  the  in- 
1  Religion  of  Protestants,  ch.  iv. 


22  THE   BIBLE 

credibility  of  that  do  cause  even  those  things  which  it  hath 
most  abundantly  to  be  less  reverently  esteemed.'  ^ 

The  underlying  error  which  has  led  to  so  much  perni- 
cious misinterpretation  of  Scriptui'C  has  been  the  violation 
of  the  laws  of  human  language  by  the  extension  of  general 
phrases  to  applications  which  they  were  never  intended 
to  include.  The  necessity  of  balance  and  correlation  was 
freely  recognised  by  some  even  of  the  early  Christian 
■writers  as  a  principle  of  ordinary  common  sense,-  but  no 
one  has  set  it  forth  more  powerfully  than  S.  T.  Coleridge 
in  his  '  Confessions  of  an  Enquiring  Spirit ' : 

'Add  to  all  these,  the  strange— in  all  other  writings 
unexampled— practice  of  bringing  together  into  logical 
dependency  detached  sentences  from  books  composed  at 
the  distance  of  centuries,  nay  sometimes  a  millennium 
from  each  other,  under  different  dispensations,  and  for 
different  objects.  Accommodations,  incidental  allusions 
to  popular  notions,  traditions,  apologues— fancies  and  ana- 
chronisms—these, detached  from  their  context  and  con- 
trary to  the  intention  of  the  sacred  writers,  first  raised  into 
independent  theses,  and  then  brought  together  to  produce 
or  sanction  some  new  credenditm.  .  .  .  By  this  strange 
mosaic.  Scripture  texts  have  been  worked  up  into  passable 
likenesses  of  Piu-gatory,  Popery,  the  Inquisition,  and  other 
monstrous  abuses.' 

1  'The  attempt  to  attacli  a  name  of  special  sanctity  to  all  the 
contents  of  the  Bible  ends  in  the  degradation  of  that  name  itself.' 
— Mackennal. 

2  See  passages  (quoted  by  Prof.  Sanday,  Inspiration,  pp.  42,  43), 
such  as  Tert.  De  exhort,  cast.  3.  Jerome  (ProL  in  FliiJem.)  quotes  a 
remarkable  passage  of  Origen,  and  (referring  to  such  verses  as 
2  Tim.  iv.  13;  Gal.  v.  12;  Phil.  i.  22,  &e.)  fully  admits  the  principle 
that  '  inspiration '  admits  of  many  degrees,  and  cannot  be  regarded 
as  unum  tcnorcm  Spiritus  Sancti. 


'EXORBITANT  INFERENCES'  23 

To  me,  then,  the  Scriptures,  not  in  every  line  and  word 
of  them,  but  in  their  total  and  final  revelation,  are  and 
ever  will  be  '  Holy  Scriptures,' '  Sacred  Writings,'  '  Sacred 
Books,'  'the  Divine  Word,'  'the  Divine  Scriptures,'  'the 
Scriptures  of  God,'  as  they  were  called  by  Theophilus  of 
Antioch,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  Origen,  and  Gains ;  they 
are  still  and  ever  will  be  /Scriptura  Dmna,  Divimim  instni- 
mentum,I}ivina  litteratura,  as  they  were  called  by  Tertullian ; 
Dii'ini  fontes,  Diinna  magistena,  praecepta  Dirhia,  Sancta 
tmditio,  as  Cyprian  styled  them.^  They  are  still  and  ever 
will  be  as  a  whole  the  Sancta  et  adorahilia  Scripturarum 
verba  which  they  were  to  Lucius  of  Thebeste  (a.d.  256). 
But  because  they  are  and  ever  will  be  thus  to  me,  and  be- 
cause they  themselves  have  taught  me  the  indefeasible 
majesty  of  Truth,  I  should  shudder  to  maintain  for  them 
the  false  claims  wliich  thej'  never  make  for  themselves  as 
a  whole,  but  which  have  been  foisted  upon  them  by  igno- 
rance and  superstition  to  the  immense  diminution  of  their 
sacred  authority,  and  to  the  deep  injuiy  of  the  Church  and 
of  mankind. - 

*  See  the  original  passages  referred  to  by  Prof.  Sanday,  Inspira- 
tion, p.  29. 

2  The  present  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  in  a  letter  to  Archbishop 
Tait,  says  :  '  "Wliat  can  be  a  grosser  superstition  tlian  the  cry  of  literal 
inspiration  ?  But  because  that  has  a  regular  footing  it  is  to  be  treated 
as  a  good  man's  mistake,  while  the  courage  to  speak  the  truth  about 
the  first  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Genesis  is  a  wanton  piece  of  wicked- 
ness' {Life  of  Jrchhishoj)  Tait,  i.  292). 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  BIBLE  IS  NOT  ONE  HOMOGENEOUS  BOOK,  BUT 
A   GRADUALLY  COLLECTED  CANON. 

'  Primam  esse  historiee  legem  ne  quid  falsi  dicere  audeat ;  deinde 
ne  quid  veri  non  audeat.'— Cic.  De  Nat,  iii.  15. 
'  God's  orthodoxy  is  truth.'— Kingsley, 

Throughout  these  chapters  I  would  ask  the  reader  to  bear 
in  mind  what  is  the  belief  of  all  Christians  respecting  the 
Bible.  There  is  not  a  Church,  nor  a  branch  of  the  Church, 
which  does  not  reverence  Holy  Scripture.  All  Churches 
admit  that  therein  God  reveals  Himself  to  man ;  that,  as 
a  whole,  the  Bible  stands  unapproachable  in  human  litera- 
ture ;  that  its  final  truths  have  a  unique  claim  upon  our 
acceptance;  that  in  it  alone  is  revealed  the  doctrine  of 
man's  salvation  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.  There 
are  also  many  Christians  who  hold  that  every  word  of  it 
is  supernaturally  dictated  and  infallibly  true.  That  opinion 
is  untenable.  It  has  not  been  held  always,  nor  everywhere, 
nor  by  all ;  there  is  not  the  least  merit  involved  in  its  ac- 
ceptance; it  is  not  helpful  to  the  religious  life  of  the 
individual  or  of  nations;  it  has,  on  the  contrary,  been 
prolific  of  terrible  disasters.  The  acceptance  of  it  may  be 
due,  not  to  faith,  but  to  a  faithless  materialism  and  a  petri- 

24 


'A  DIVINE  LIBRARY'  25 

fied  tradition ;  the  rejection  of  it  is  not  a  sign  of  unbelief, 
but  a  duty  to  truth,  and  to  the  God  of  Truth. 

No  student  can  historically  understand  the  Bible  until 
he  is  ready  to  lay  aside  aU  prior  considerations,  and 
examine  it  analytically,  arri\ang  by  induction  at  a  real 
knowledge  as  to  its  claims  and  character. 

1.  First  of  all,  we  must  never  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that 
the  Bible  is  not  a  single  nor  even  a  homogeneous  book. 
The  Bible  is,  strictly  speaking,  not  a  book  but  a  library.^ 
It  is  not  a  single  book,  but  a  collection  of  sixty-six  books. 
To  thirty-nine  of  these  we  give  the  collective  title  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and  to  the  remaining  twenty-seven  the 
title  of  the  New  Testament.  They  constitute,  as  Edmund 
Burke  said,  '  an  infinite  collection  of  the  most  varied  and 
the  most  venerable  literature.' 

These  books  were  commonly  ref  eiTcd  to  as  '  the  writing ' 
(Scripture)  or  '  the  writings '  (Scriptures),-  to  which  names 
were  frequently  added  the  epithets  'sacred'  or  'holy.' 
They  were  called  '  sacred '  because  they  dealt  with  the  re- 
lations of  God  to  man,  and  contained  revelations  of  His 
will.  They  were  called  '  holy '  because  their  ultimate  end 
was  to  promote  the  cause  of  holiness.  We  trace  in  the 
Old  Testament  nothing  which  approaches  to  a  conception 
of  '  the  Bible '  as  such ;  or  even  of  the  '  Law '  as  a  recog- 
nised document,  till  the  discovery  of  some  volume— which 
many  have  conjectured  to  have  been  part  of  the  Book  of 

1  '  And  the  same  things  were  related  both  in  the  public  archives 
and  in  the  records  that  concern  Nehemiah :  and  how  he,  founding  a 
library,  gathered  together  the  books  about  the  kings  and  prophets, 
and  the  books  of  David,  and  letters  of  kings  about  sacred  gifts.' 
2  Mace.  ii.  13.     See  p.  32,  n.  2. 

2  So  in  Sanskrit  the  word  for  '  revelation '  is  Sruti,  from  Sruta, 
'  heard.'    Max  Miiller,  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  i.  p.  xiii. 


26  THE   BIBLE 

Deuteronomy  1— in  the  reign  of  Josiah  {circ.  B.C.  624). 
The  High  Priest  Hilkiah  found  it  in  the  Temple,  and  said 
to  Shaphan  the  Scribe, '  I  have  found  the  Book  of  the  Law 
in  the  House  of  the  Lord.'  'Hilkiah  the  Priest  hath 
"delivered  me  a  book,"'  said  the  cautious  scribe.  When 
the  scribe  read  the  book  to  Josiah,  the  king  was  astonished 
and  horrified  to  find  himself  unacquainted  with  the  most 
essential  and  elementary  rules  which  Moses  was  there  said 
to  have  ordained.  So  completely  had  they  fallen  into 
desuetude  that  the  people  knew  nothing  about  them,  and 
seem  never  to  have  heard  of  them.  Neither  the  Passover 
nor  the  Sabbatical  year  had  been  kept,  and  there  is  not  an 
allusion  in  the  whole  Old  Testament— after  the  Pentateuch 
—not  even  in  the  Levitic  ideal  of  Ezekiel,  not  even  in 
Zech.  V.  or  viii.,  not  even  in  Nehem.  viii.-x.,  nor  until 
Ecclus.  1.  1-5— to  the  Day  of  Atonement.  There  is  no 
evidence  that '  the  Book  of  the  Law '  was  co-extensive  with 
the  Pentateuch,  nor  is  there  any  proof  of  the  existence  of 
a  collected  Pentateuch  earlier  than  the  days  of  Ezra  (b.c. 
444).  'The  Bible  and  the  reading  of  the  Bible  as  an  in- 
strument of  instruction,'  says  Dean  Stanley,  '  may  be  said 
to  have  begun  on  the  sunrise  of  that  day  when  Ezra  un- 
rolled the  parchment  scroll  of  the  Law.'  ^  From  that  era 
tm  the  days  of  John  the  Baptist  prophecy  ceased.  Scribes 
and  Pharisees  more  and  more  substituted  the  dead  letter 
for  the  living  voice  of  God,  and  soon  they  elevated  the 
dead  letter  upon  an  idol-pedestal,  and  paid  to  it  a  new  and 
no  less  perilous  idolatry. 

The  sacred  writings  were  not  referred  to  as  '  the  Book ' 

1  As  even  some  of  the  Fathers  thought :  Jer.  Adv.  Jovin.  i.  5 ; 
Chrys.  Horn,  in  Matt.  p.  9. 

2  October,  B.C.  444.    Nehem.  viii.-x. ;  Deut.  xxxi.  11.     See  Comill, 
Einleit.  in  d.  A.  T.  pp.  62-67 ;  Kuenen,  Hexateuch,  $  15. 


'A  DIVINE  LIBRARY'  27 

till  a  late  epoch.  The  particular  name  '  Bible '  dates  from 
the  fourth  century.  St.  Jerome  (d.  420)  called  the  Scrip- 
tures '  a  Divine  Library.'  St.  Chrysostom  called  them  '  the 
Books.'  The  neuter  plural '  bibha '  was  mistaken  in  the  West- 
ern Church,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  for  a  feminine  singu- 
lar, and  from  it  is  derived  our  familiar  name  '  the  Bible.'  ^ 

2.  The  multiform  elements  of  which  the  Bible  is  com- 
posed will  appear  if  we  glance  at  the  history  of  the  Canon. 

The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament— that  is,  the  list  of 
those  books  which  were  finally  accepted  by  the  Jewish 
Chiu'ch  as  authoritative— was  arrived  at  by  slow  and  un- 
certain degrees.  It  had,  however,  been  agreed  upon  in  its 
general  outline  before  the  time  of  Christ.  The  books  of 
the  Old  Testament  which  we  now  receive  are  in  gi-eat 
measure  the  same  as  those  which  were  regarded  as  ca- 
nonical by  Philo  (a.d.  30)-  and  Josephus  (a.d.  93).^    Both 

1  See  Bishop  Westeott,  Tlie  Bible  in  the  Church,  p.  5. 

2  In  a  treatise  attributed  to  Philo,  On  the  Contemplative  Life,  there 
is  a  general  classification^  of  Old  Testament  writings.  The  book  is 
regarded  as  a  forgery  of  the  third  century  (Kuenen,  Eel.  of  Israel,  ii. 
204),  but  Mr.  F.  Conybeare  has  urged  strong  reasons  for  holding  it 
to  be  genuine.  Philo  quotes  all  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament 
except  Nehemiah,  Ruth,  Esther,  Chronicles,  Ezekiel,  Lamentations, 
Daniel,  Ecclesiastes,  and  Canticles.  On  the  other  hand  he  quotes 
from  the  Pentateuch  ten  times  more  frequently  than  from  the  other 
books,  and  seems  to  attach  to  it  an  immeasurably  higher  importance 
and  authority.  The  Sadducees  did  the  same.  The  Samaritans  ac- 
cepted no  Scriptures  except  the  Pentateuch. 

3  Josephus  (c.  Ap.  i.  7,  9)  says  that  his  Canon  consisted  of  twenty- 
two  books  (the  number  of  letters  in  the  Hebrew  alphabet).  It  is  not 
possible  to  assert  with  certainty  how  he  arranged  the  books.  He 
refers  to  all  the  books  except  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  Canticles,  and 
Job.  On  the  other  hand  the  Essenes  extended  the  Canon,  including 
many  books  which  are  not  regarded  as  canonical.  See  Bishop  West- 
eott, Tlie  Bible  in  the  Church,  pp.  25-30. 


28  THE   BIBLE 

were  competent  witnesses ;  both  (perhaps)  were  of  priestly 
descent ;  one  represented  the  cultivation  of  Alexandria,  the 
other  the  traditions  of  Palestine.  Analogous  proof  is 
furnished  by  the  Jews  of  Babylon  in  a  passage  of  the 
Talmud,  which  gives  additional  testimony  to  the  late  edit- 
ing of  many  of  the  books.^ 

The  writings  which  we  call  'the  Apocrypha'  were  not 
placed  by  the  Jewish  Church  on  the  same  footing  as  the 
rest;  and  although  the  New  Testament  has  quotations 
from  every  book  of  the  Old  Testament  except  twelve,  it 
has  no  direct  quotation  from,  nor  many  certain  references 
to,  any  book  of  the  Apocrypha.^  It  recognises  the  classi- 
fication of  the  Old  Testament  into  thi-ee  broad  divisions 
—the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  Psalms.^ 

3.  The  Canon  of  the  New  Testament  was  formed  in  the 
same  gradual  and  tentative  manner,  by  the  exercise  of  the 
enlightened  reason.  In  the  first  two  centuries  many  Gos- 
l^els,  Epistles,  and  Apocalypses  were  current,  to  some  of 

^  In  the  Gemara  Baba  Bathra,  14.  b.  In  2  Esdr.  xiv.  44  we  read 
of  ninety-tour  books,  but  seventy  of  these  are  reserved  for  '  the  wise ' 
Cver.  46).  The  Talmudic  passages  which  bear  on  the  Canon  are 
collected  by  Wildeboer,  p.  63. 

^  St.  Jude,  however,  quotes  the  Book  of  Enoch  (which  is  not  in  our 
Apocrypha),  and  there  are  traces  in  the  Epistle  of  St.  James  of  some 
use  of  the  Book  of  Wisdom.  Eom.  i.  20-32,  ix.  21 ;  Eph.  vi.  13-17 ; 
Heb.  i.  3 ;  1  Pet.  i.  6,  7 ;  Jas.  v.  6,  are  thought  to  be  suggested  by  the 
Book  of  Wisdom ;  and  1  Cor.  vi.  13,  Jas.  i.  6,  19,  by  Ecclesiasticus. 
Some  suspect  allusions  to  lost  books  in  2  Tim.  iii.  8 ;  Heb.  xi.  37 ; 
Jude  9.  In  Heb.  xi.  34,  35,  37  are  references  to  2  Mace.  vi.  18,  7, 
42.  See,  for  an  account  of  apocryphal  Jewish  literature,  Schiirer, 
Slst.  of  the  Jewish  People,  Div.  iii.  1-155.  Wildeboer  (p.  51)  says 
'that  the  New  Testament  writers  quote  from  apocrj^phal  books  can 
only  be  denied  by  dogmatic  prejudice.'  But  see  also  Bishop  West- 
cott,  Tlie  Bible  in  the  Church,  pp.  46-49. 

3  Luke  xxiv.  44. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT   CANON  29 

which  St.  Luke  refers  without  formal  reprobation,  and 
some  of  these  obtained  in  the  Chui'ch  a  brief  and  hmited 
acceptance.  Other  books,  such  as  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas 
and  the  Epistles  of  Clement  and  Barnabas,  were  so  highly- 
regarded  that  they  too  were  quoted  as  sacred  books,  and 
read  aloud  in  some  Christian  churches.^  There  were  also 
certain  books  undoubtedly  spm-ious  which  were  quoted  by 
early  Christian  writers  as  possessing  '  inspired '  authority, 
such  as  the  prophecies  of  Hystaspes  and  the  Sibyl.-  None 
of  these  long  held  their  ground,  nor  were  they  ever  placed 
on  exactly  the  same  level  as  the  books  now  regarded  as 
canonical.  Most  of  the  New  Testament  books  were  uni- 
versally received  and  were  called  '  Acknowledged  Books ' 
{Uomologoumena).  Seven  of  them,  however — the  Second 
Epistle  of  St.  Peter,  the  Second  and  Third  Epistles  of  St. 
John,  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  those  of  St.  James  and 
St.  Jude,  and  the  Revelation— were  classed  together  as 
'Disputed  Books'  {Antilegotnena)?  There  was  no  final 
test  of  theii"  canonicity  except  the  verifying  faculty  of  the 
Christian  consciousness.  In  the  Lutheran  Church  some 
of  these  disputed  books,  and  especially  the  Revelation  of 

1  Just  as  the  Apocrypha  is  found,  without  any  distinction  between 
it  and  the  canonical  Old  Testament,  in  the  Septuagint,  so  in  two  of 
the  oldest  MSS.  we  find  early  Christian  writings— the  two  Epistles 
of  Clement  added  to  the  Alexandrian  MS.  (about  a.d.  430),  and  the 
Epistle  of  Barnabas  and  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas  to  the  Sinaitic  MS. 
(about  A.D.  331). 

2  See  Just.  Mart.  Jjjo?.  i.  20,  44;  Clem.  Alex.  Strom,  vi.  5,  p.  761 ; 
Lact.  Instt.  Div.  vii.  15,  18. 

'  Many  of  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  were  but  little  known 
to  the  mass  of  Christians  even  in  the  fifth  century.  St.  Chrysostom 
preaclied  on  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  because  he  tells  us  that  many 
of  the  Christians  at  Constantinojile  were  hardly  aware  of  its  existence 
{Comm.  in  Act.  Aj)ost.  i.  1,  Opp.  ix.  1). 


30  THE  BIBLE 

St.  John,  have  never  been  admitted  as  more  than  Deutero- 
canonical ;  that  is,  they  have  been  regarded  as  of  inferior 
vahie  and  authority  to  the  rest.  Luther,  relying  on  the 
promised  guidance  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  '  sought  for  the 
Canon  in  the  Canon  ; '  and,  though  his  judgments  were  not 
always  sound,  he  shows  true  faith  by  the  masculine  inde- 
pendence with  which  he  felt  himself  at  hberty  to  speak  of 
some  books  of  the  Bible  as  inferior  to  others  in  essential 
value.'  He  did  not  value  the  historic  accuracy  of  the 
Books  of  Chronicles ;  he  regarded  Ecclesiastes  as  pseudony- 
mous, and  rejects  Esther  from  the  Canon. 

His  prefaces  to  the  various  books,  as  originally  printed, 
furnish  a  noble  specimen  of  the  attitude  which  approaches 
Scripture  with  reverence,  and  yet  with  the  knowledge  that 
the  vivifying  spirit  of  the  Christian  is  quite  as  sacred  as 
the  printed  letter  of  the  book,^  His  test  of  the  books  of 
Scripture  {der  rechfe  Friifestein)  was  whether  they  did  or 
did  not  testify  to  Christ. 

4.  The  formation  then  of  the  Canon  alike  of  the  Old 

1  It  must,  however,  be  admitted  that  he  showed  a  defective  dis- 
crimination in  his  rash  language  about  the  Epistle  of  St.  James, 
which  he  metaphorically  tossed  aside  as  'a  right  strawy  Epistle' 
{recht  strohern)  which  lacked  all  evangelical  character.  He  also 
held  the  Apocalypse  in  small  esteem,  Preface  to  New  Testament; 
Seventh  Thesis  against  Eck  ;  De  Captiv.  Bab.;  Dorner,  Hist,  of  Prot. 
Theol.  (E.T.)  i.  241-245  ;  Luther's  Werke  (Walch),  viii.  2138.  'If  any 
one  should  press  thee  with  phrases  which  speak  of  works  and  which 
thou  canst  not  bring  into  concord  with  the  others,  thou  oughtest  to 
say.  Since  Christ  is  the  treasure  whereby  I  am  bought,  ...  I  care 
not  the  slightest  jot  for  all  such  phrases  of  Scripture.  ...  At  the 
same  time  it  is  impossible  that  the  Scriptures  should  contradict 
themselves.  .  .  .  Hear  thou  well,  thou  art  almost  a  bully  with  the 
Scriptures,  which  are  nevertheless  under  Christ  as  a  servant.' 

2  For  an  account  of  Luther's  views  of  Scripture  see  my  History  of 
Interpretation,  pp.  324-340 ;  Kostlin,  Luthers  Theologie,  ii.  258-285. 


FORMATION   OF  THE   CANON  31 

and  New  Testaments  was  a  work  which  God  left  to  the 
ordinary  influences  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  It  was  not  due  to 
any  external  inspired  authority.  No  vision  of  the  night, 
no  voice  from  heaven  declared  the  books  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament to  be  the  Word  of  God ;  nor  did  any  Church  coun- 
cil for  some  centuries  certify  their  canonicity  until  it  had 
been  practically  settled  by  the  common  methods  of  criti- 
cism. God  has  given  man  a  lamp  which  is  sufficient  to 
enable  him  to  discern  truth  from  falsehood  in  all  essential 
tilings.  Having  bestowed  on  man  his  Reason  and  his 
Conscience,  He  does  not  speak  to  him  by  voices  in  the  air. 
God  never  reveals  to  man  what  He  has  enabled  man  to  dis- 
cern for  himself. 

i.  The  fixation  of  the  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament  was 
the  work  of  Scribes  and  Rabbis  who  exercised  theii'  own 
judgment  in  accordance  with  the  best  insight  which  they 
possessed.^ 

There  were  long  hesitations  in  the  Jewish  Church  about 
admitting  the  'Song  of  Songs'  into  the  Canon.  Some 
Rabbis  looked  on  it  as  a  mere  love  song,  unworthy  to  be 
admitted  as  a  sacred  book.  Others  saw  its  purity  and 
beauty,  and  partly  by  the  help  of  the  allegoric  senses  in 
which  it  was  gi-aduaUy  interpreted,  it  overcame  the  feeling 
of  opposition.  Its  acceptance  was  determined  by  the  em- 
phatic eulogy  pronounced  upon  it  by  R.  Aqiba  (d.  a.d. 
135  ?),  the  most  influential  of  the  Rabbis— the  St.  Thomas 

1  The  division  of  the  Bible  into  Law,  Prophets,  and  *  other  books 
of  our  fathers '  (Hagiographa)  (Torah,  Nebiim,  Kethubim,  known  in 
the  Massorah  as  Tenak,  from  the  initial  letters)  is  first  found  in  the 
Preface  to  Ecclesiasticus  about  B.C.  132  or  earlier  (?).  The  Law  was 
regarded  as  the  most  fully  inspired  ('mouth  to  mouth,'  Num.  xii.  8). 
The  Prophets  were  said  to  be  inspired  by  'the  Spirit  of  Prophecy;' 
and  the  Kethubim  by  the  '  Holy  Spirit,'  More  Nebochim,  ii.  45.  For  de- 
tails see  Wildeboer,  Canon,  pp.  2-19 ;  Ewald,  Gesch.  d.  V.  Isr.  vii.  458. 


32  THE  BIBLE 

Aquinas  of  Talmudic  scholasticism.  But  the  whole  school 
of  Shammai  called  it  the  '  Holy  of  Holies '  of  all  Scripture 
{Yaddayim,  iii.).^ 

Similarly  many  of  the  Jewish  teachers  objected  to  what 
appeared  to  be  the  gloom  and  scepticism  of  the  Book  of 
Ecclesiastes ;  but  the  practical  piety  of  its  conclusion  se- 
cured its  final  admission  ( Yaddayim,  ch.  iii. ;  Eduyoth,  v,  3). 

Even  the  Book  of  Ezekiel  was  not  admitted  without 
hesitation,  because  some  Rabbis  looked  upon  various  pas- 
sages of  it  as  contradicting  the  words  of  Moses  (Menachoth, 
45.  1;  Ezek.  iv.  14,  xxxiv.  10,  xliv.  31,  xlv.  20,  &c.).  The 
explanation  of  the  apparent  discrepancies  was  due  to 
Rabbi  Chananyah  ben  Hezekiah  {Shahhath,  fr.  13,  2) ;  but 
the  beginning  and  end  of  Ezeldel  could  not  be  read  tiU 
the  age  of  thirty  (Jer.  Up.  ad  Paulin.     Epp.  liii.  8). 

It  is  commonly  asserted  that  the  Canon  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament was  finally  fixed  by  Ezra  and  the  so-caUed  Great 
Synagogue.  The  assertion  only  rests  on  a  sentence  in  the 
'Sayings  of  the  Jewish  Fathers,'  a  tract  of  the  Mishna 
which  was  not  reduced  to  writing  till  a.d.  200.  It  finds 
no  support  in  Philo,  in  Josephus,  the  Greek  translators,^ 

1  Rabbi  Judah  decided  that  Canticles  defiles  the  hands— i.e.  is 
canonical— A.D.  120.  It  is  clear  that  the  allegoric  interpretation 
began  early;  see  2  Esdr.  i.  24  (Cant.  ii.  14,  vi.  9),  vii.  26.  Aqiba 
(Sanhedrin,  34,  1)  argued  from  Ps.  Ixii.  11 :  '  One  thing  God  spake, 
twofold  is  what  I  heard.'  Edersheim,  Life  of  Jesus,  i.  35.  See  too 
Jer.  on  Eccl.  xii.  13. 

2  It  is  true  that  in  2  Mace.  ii.  13  there  is  a  talk  of  a  lihrary  of 
Nehemiah,  but  it  occurs  in  a  letter  full  of  absurdities  and  devoid  of 
all  historic  value.  See  Konig,  Einleitung,  445.  The  Talmud  speaks 
of  Ezra  and  the  men  of  the  Great  Synagogue  '  writing '  certain  entire 
books,  and  Jerome  goes  so  far  as  to  say,  '  Sive  Mosen  dicere  volueris 
auctorem  Pentateuchi,  sive  Ezram  ejusdem  instauratorem,  non  re- 
cuse,' Ep.  ad  Helvid.    Cf.  Clem.  Alex.  Strom.  I.  xxii. ;  Iren.  iii.  25. 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CANON  33 

or  the  New  Testament.^  It  is  in  direct  opposition  to  the 
fact  (1)  that  the  MSS.  of  the  Greek  translators  (the  Seventy, 
B.C.  270  and  onwards)  make  no  distinction  between  apocry- 
phal and  other  writings ;  and  (2)  that  the  Canon  of  the  Old 
Testament  was  still  a  subject  of  discussion  after  the  Chris- 
tian era.  For  the  Old  Testament  Canon  was  not  regarded 
as  settled  before  a.d.  70.  In  that  year  the  Jews  at  Jamnia 
(Jal)neh)  decided  in  favour  of  our  present  thu'ty-nine 
books,  which  they  called  tweuty-f oui* :  namely,  (1)  the  five 
books  of  the  Law;  (2)  eight  books  of  the  Prophets— by 
which  they  meant  Joshua,  Judges,  Samuel,  Kings,  Isaiah, 
Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  and  twelve  minor  prophets ;  (3)  eleven 
writings,  called  by  the  Jews  Kethubim,  and  in  Greek 
Hagiograjyha— Ruth,  Psalms,  Proverbs,  Job,  Ecclesiastes, 
Canticles,  Lamentations,  Daniel,  Esther,  Ezra,  Nehemiah, 
and  Chronicles.^    The  gathering  at  Jamnia  ^  was  a  tumul- 

1  Our  Lord  refers  to  the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  the  Psalms  (Luke 
xxiv.  44),  but  this  is  not  more  definite  than  the  reference  of  Eeclesi- 
asticus  (B.C.  120)  to  the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  other  books  trans- 
mitted to  the  Fathers.  Ecclesiastes,  Proverbs,  Canticles,  Esther, 
Ezra,  Nehemiah  are  not  quoted  in  the  New  Testament,  and  Ezekiel 
and  Chronicles  are  only  referred  to  distantly.  On  the  whole  subject 
see  Cornill,  Grtmdriss,  $  48 ;  Wildeboer,  pp.  58-62.  A  Baraitha  of 
the  Babylonian  Talmud  {Baba  Bathra,  f .  14.  h,  15.  a)  gives  the  views 
of  the  Jews  in  Babylon. 

2  Just  as  the  Prophets  were  divided  into  Nchiim  Bislionim  (or 
'earlier'),  viz.— Joshua,  Judges,  1,  2  Samuel,  1,  2  Kings,  and  the 
Nehiim  Acharonim  (or  'later'),  so  the  Kethubim  were  divided  into 
Bishonim,  and  Acharonim  which  contain  the  latest  books,  Daniel, 
Ezra,  Nehemiah,  Chronicles.  The  five  Mcgilloth  (rolls)  are  placed  in 
the  middle,  viz.— Canticles,  Euth,  Lameutations,Eeelesiastcs,  Esther. 

3  At  this  meeting  the  celebrated  'eigliteen  rules'  were  adopted. 
Another  assembly  was  held  at  Jamnia  about  a.d.  101  \mder  Kabban 
Gamaliel  II.,  in  which  Ecclesiastes  was  admitted  {Edmjoth,  v.  3; 
Griitz,  Gesch.  d.  Juden,  iii.  355,  494-502;  Wellhausen,  Einleit.  550; 
Derenbourg,  p.  295). 

3 


84  THE  BIBLE 

tuoiis  assemblage,  and  in  the  faction  fights  of  the  Rabbinic 
parties,  blood  was  shed  by  theii-  scholars.  Hence  the  de- 
cision was  regarded  as  irrevocable  and  sealed  by  blood. 
From  this  time  forwards  the  Talmudists  limited  the  books 
of  the  Scripture  to  twenty-four.^ 

ii.  Exactly  the  same  influences  were  at  work  in  the 
formation  of  the  Christian  Ganon. 

One  of  the  ablest  of  the  Fathers,  Dionysius  of  Alexan- 
dria, shared  a  widespread  uncertainty  about  the  Book  of 
Revelation,  and  thought  that  it  was  written  by  a  presbyter 
named  John,  and  not  by  the  Evangelist  St.  John.  The 
Greek  churches  regarded  it  for  the  most  part  with  little 
favour,  and  one  early  Christian  writer  went  so  far  as  to 
attribute  it  to  the  heretic  Cerinthus.^  To  the  imaginary 
John  the  Presbyter  were  also  attributed  the  Second  and 
Third  Epistles  of  St.  John. 

The  Epistle  of  Jude  secured  a  tardy  acknowledgment, 
but  was  long  in  peril  of  rejection  because  of  its  remark- 
able peculiarities,  and  its  quotation  from  the  strange  and 
spurious  prophecy  of  Enoch.  'The  Epistle,'  says  St. 
Jerome,  'is  rejected  by  most.'  Of  the  Epistle  of  James, 
Jerome  tells  us,  '  It  is  asserted  to  have  been  brought  out 
by  somebody  else  under  his  name ; '  and  of  the  Second 
Epistle  of  Peter  that  most  Christians  denied  it  to  be  his.^ 

1  Talm.  Babli.,  Baba  Bathra,  14;  Wildeboer,  $  ii.  2;  and  on  the 
Synod,  Gratz,  Gesch.  d.  Juden,  iii.  496 ;  Robertson  Smith,  Tltc  Old 
Testament  and  the  Church.  On  Jamnia,  see  Derenbourg,  Palestine, 
295;  Cornill,  Grundriss,  pp.  281,  291;  Hamburger  Encykl.  ii.  s.vv. 
'  Synedrion,'  'Jabne.' 

2  Books  were  judged  by  the  congrnity  of  their  contents  with  the 
general  Christian  conviction,  and  many  objected  to  the  Apocalypse 
because  it  was  supposed  to  favour  millenarian  vaews. 

3  The  Canon  of  the  New  Testament  was  first  formally  and  officially 
settled  by  two  provincial  sjTiods— that  of  Laodicea  (a.d.  363),  and 


THE   SYNOD   OF  JAMNIA  35 

The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  ran  considerable  risk  of  re- 
jection from  the  Canon,  partly  because  many  perceived 
that  it  could  not  have  been  written  by  St.  Paul;  partly 
because  of  the  intense  and  apparently  exceptionless  severi- 
ty of  some  of  its  warnings ;  partly  because  the  plu-ase  '  to 
Him  that  made  Him'  ^  {ru>  Txou]oavrt  avrov)  (Heb.  iii.  2)  was 
erroneously  supposed  to  favour  the  Arian  heresy  which 
spoke  of  Christ  as  a  created  being.  '  The  custom  of  the 
Latins/  says  St.  Jerome, '  does  not  admit  it  among  canon- 
ised scriptures.'  Jude,  2  Peter,  2,  3  John,  and  Revelation 
were  absent  from  the  canon  of  the  Syriac  Church ;  and 
James  and  2  Peter  probably  had  no  place  in  the  early 
Latin  translations  current  in  North  Africa. 

If  it  be  asked,  then,  on  what  authority  we  accept  as 
canonical  the  sixty-six  books  of  our  Scriptures,  many  will 
reply,  '  on  the  authority  of  the  Church.'  But  this  answer 
simply  means,  by  the  general  consensus  of  Christians ;  for 
it  can  hardly  be  said  that  the  whole  Church,  as  such,  has 
pronounced  any  opinion  on  the  Canon.  As  regards  the 
Old  Testament  the  Christian  Church  accepted  the  conclu- 
sions of  the  Jewish  Sjoiod  of  Jamnia,  and  that  synod  simply 
reflected  the  critical  and  spiritual  ability  of  Rabbis  who 
were  far  from  being  unanimous,  were  bound  in  an  impos- 
sible system,  and  were  by  no  means  free  from  error.  The 
churchmen  assembled  at  Laodicea  -  and  Carthage  exercised 
no  independent  judgment  on  their  books,  nor  was  their 
critical  knowledge  other  than  elementary.   No  oecumenical 

that  of  two  synods  of  Carthage  (a.d.  397  and  419),  the  decrees  of 
which  were  generally  sanctioned  by  the  Trullan  Council,  a.d.  692, 
See  Bishop  Westcott,  The  Bible  in  Vie  Church,  pp.  170,  188,  217. 

^  The  phrase  simply  means,  '  to  Him  that  appointed  Him ; '  com- 
pare 1  Sam.  xii.  6,  Mark  iii.  14,  Acts  ii.  36. 

'•^  The  Laodicean  list  is  regarded  as  a  gloss. 


36  THE  BIBLE 

council  has  formally  considered  the  question  of  the  Canon, 
but  only  two  provincial  synods.  Even  had  they  been 
oecumenical  we  know  from  history,  and  are  expressly 
warned  by  our  own  Church,  that  general  councils,  '  foras- 
much as  they  be  an  assembly  of  men  whereof  aU  be  not 
governed  with  the  Spirit  and  Word  of  God,  may  err  and 
sometimes  have  erred,  even  in  things  pertaining  unto 
God.'  St.  Gregory  of  Nazianzus,  one  of  the  most  learned, 
profound,  and  eloquent  of  the  Fathers,  who  himself  pre- 
sided at  the  second  oecumenical  council,  was  so  far  from 
regarding  councils  as  infallible  that  he  had  the  lowest 
opinion  of  theu-  deliberations  and  said  that  he  had  never 
seen  a  good  result  from  any  synod.  Luther  said,  'The 
Church  cannot  give  any  more  authority  or  power  than  it 
has  of  itself.  A  council  cannot  make  that  to  be  of  Scrip- 
ture which  is  not  by  nature  of  Scripture.' ^  It  follows 
then  that  the  decision  as  to  what  books  are  or  are  not  to 
be  regarded  as  true  Scripture,  though  we  believe  it  to  be 
wise  and  right,  depends  on  no  infallible  decision.  It  must 
satisfy  the  scientific  and  critical  as  well  as  the  spu-itual 
requii'cments  of  each  age.  When  the  Council  of  Trent,  a 
small  assembly  in  which  there  were  very  few  men  of  high 
linguistic  or  critical  attainments,  declared  on  the  authority 
of  Pope  Eugenius  IV.  that  six  books  of  the  Apocrypha 
were  to  be  '  received  and  venerated '  with  the  same  feeling 
of  devotion  and  reverence  as  all  the  books  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments,  the  Reformed  Churches  rightly  ignored 
their  authority,  and  laid  it  down  as  a  principle  that  '  any 
man  may  reject  books  claiming  to  be  Holy  Scripture  if  he 
do  not  feel  the  e\ddence  of  theii*  contents.'  The  anathemas 
of  the  Council  of  Trent  are  as  complete  a  matter  of  indiffer- 
ence to  the  free  conscience  as  those  of  the  Synod  of  Jamnia. 
1  Disputatio  Eccii  et  Lntheri.     See  Dorner,  Prot.  Theoh  i.  94,  95. 


THE   CHRISTIAN   CONSCIENCE  37 

The  conclusion  may  be  expressed  in  the  archaic  language 
of  the  Scotch  Confession,  1560. 

'  As  we  believe  and  conf ese  the  Scriptures  of  God  suffi- 
cient to  instruct  and  make  the  man  of  God  perfite,  so  do 
we  affirme  and  avow  the  authority  of  the  same  to  be  of 
God  and  neither  to  depend  on  men  nor  angehs.  We  affirme 
therefore  that  sik  as  allege  the  Scripture  to  have  no  uther 
authoritie  bot  that  quhilk  it  ben  received  from  the  Kirk 
to  be  blasphemous  against  God  and  injurious  to  the  trew 
Kii-k  quhilk  always  heares  and  obeyes  the  voice  of  her 
awin  spouse  and  Pastor;  but  takis  not  upon  her  to  be 
maistres  over  the  samin.'  ^ 

'The  Bible/  says  Bishop  Westcott,  'is  in  its  origin  a 
slow  gi'owth  of  time,  intimately  connected  with  a  long 
development  of  national  life,  bearing  on  its  surface  the 
impress  of  successive  revelations,  extended  from  time  to 
time  by  the  addition  of  new  elements,  accepted  in  its 
present  form  not  by  one  act  once  for  all,  but  gradually 
and,  as  far  as  can  be  traced  by  the  help  of  existing  records, 
according  to  natural  laws  of  criticism  exercised  within 
definite  limits.'  '^ 

1  Art.  xix.     See  Briggs's  Bible  Studies. 

2  ITie  Bible  in  the  Church,  p.  2.  The  word  for  'Scripture'  (ypa<j>^) 
is  said  to  be  first  applied  to  the  New  Testament  by  Theophilus  of 
Antioch  (a.d.  180).  The  word  'canon'  was  not  used  of  the  New 
Testament  for  three  centuries,  but  was  confined  to  the  Creed.  To 
the  early  Christians,  Christianity  meant  what  Christ  teas,  not  what 
He  said.  It  meant  the  eternal  presence  of  the  living  Saviour,  not 
the  recorded  words  of  a  Christ  who  was  exclusively  preached  and 
sj-mbolised  as  dead  (Westcott,  ib.  pp.  94,  110,  &e.).  The  name 
'  Testament '  applied  to  the  books  of  the  Bible  is  due  to  a  mistake. 
It  was  also  called  Instrumentum,  a  record.  Testament  means  'a 
will.'  St.  Jerome,  in  his  Latin  translation  of  the  Bible  (the  Vulgate), 
used  the  word  testamcntum  to  translate  the  Greek  word  diatheke  in 
Heb.  ix.  15-17 ;  compare  Gal.  iii.  17.     Tertvdlian  preferred  instrii- 


38  THE   BIBLE 

mentum  {Apol.  17  et passim).  But  diatheJce  does  not  nonnally  mean 
'  a  will '  in  the  New  Testament.  The  Jews  were  not  familiar  with 
the  habit  of  'making  wills,'  of  which  they  only  heard  from  the 
Romans.  In  the  New  Testament,  with  the  exception  of  a  passing 
allusion  in  Heb.  ix.  16  (the  writer  has  explained  his  view  of  the  pas- 
sage in  the  edition  of  the  Epistle  in  the  Cambridge  Bible  for  Schools, 
p.  120),  the  word  diatheke  is  always  the  equivalent  of  the  Jewish 
word  berith,  which  means  a  'covenant'  (see  Wildeboer,  Canon,  p.  6 
(E.T.);  Zahn,  Gesch.  d.  N.  Eanons,  i.  105).  'Old  Covenant,'  as  ap- 
plied to  the  first  thirty-nine  books  of  the  Bible,  is  in  itself  no  more 
than  a  gradual  and,  so  to  speak,  accidental  extension  of  the  phrase, 
'  the  Book  of  the  Covenant,'  which  was  originally  applied  to  the  Law 
alone  (2  Kings  xxiii.  21). 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   BIBLE   REPRESENTS   THE  REIVIAINS   OP  A  MUCH 
Wn>ER  LITERATURE. 

'  For  the  present  it  was  intended  revelation  should  be  no  more 
than  a  small  light  in  the  midst  of  a  world,  greatly  overspread,  not- 
withstanding it,  with  ignorance  and  darkness.'— Butler,  Analogy 
II.  vi.  §  5. 

The  marked  separation  of  the  Bible  into  the  books  of  the 
Old  and  New  Covenants  is  alone  sufficient  to  show  that 
the  Bible  cannot  be  regarded  as  a  simple  homogeneous 
book.  Both  sections  represent  the  selected  and  fragmentary 
remains  of  an  extensive  literature,^  and  those  selections 
mainly  fall  into  two  great  divisions  separated  from  each 
other  by  the  period  of  more  than  four  and  a  half  centuries 
which  intervened  between  Malachi  (b.c.  420)  and  the  first 
book  in  the  New  Covenant,  which  is  the  earliest  extant 
letter  of  St.  Paul— the  First  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians, 
written  about  a.d.  53. 

The  Old  Testament  does  not  represent  the  whole  lite- 
rature of  the  Jews.2  It  contains  quotations  from  and 
references  to  a  number  of  other  books— at  least  sixteen— 
which  are  now  lost.     Many  such  collections  were  quoted 

1  We  have  only  one  or  two  of  Solomon's  1005  songs  (1  Kings  iv.  32). 

2  I  need  not  here  enter  into  the  question  as  to  how  much  of  the 
Old  Testament  may  be  post-Exilic. 

39 


40  THE  BIBLE 

and  utilised  by  the  compilers  and  editors  of  the  Pentateuch 
and  the  Historic  Books.  Among  these  were  *  The  Acts  of 
Solomon,'  *  The  Chronicles  of  King  David,'  *  The  Chronicles 
of  the  Kings  of  Israel/  '  The  Clu'onicles  of  the  Kings  of 
Judah,'  'The  Books  of  Nathan  the  Prophet,  and  of  Gad 
the  Seer,' '  The  Prophecy  of  Ahijah  the  Shilonite,'  and  '  The 
Vision  of  Iddo  the  Seer.'  Two  were  of  special  importance  : 
'  The  Book  of  the  Wars  of  the  Lord,'  which  is  quoted  in 
Numbers;  and  'The  Book  of  Jasher,'  or  'the  Upright.' 
The  latter  was,  in  part  at  any  rate,  a  collection  of  poems 
from  which  there  are  some  remarkable  and  magnificent 
quotations  on  the  glory  of  the  ideal  Israel. 

Many  of  the  Old  Testament  books  are  anonymous ;  one 
or  two  are  certainly  pseudonymous — that  is,  they  are  at- 
tributed by  tradition  to  writers  by  whom  they  could  not 
have  been  composed. 

Probably,  too,  our  Sacred  Books  are  even  more  frag- 
mentary than  at  first  sight  they  appear  to  be.  Although 
no  final  arrangement  of  the  contents  of  the  Pentateuch 
has  yet  been  found  possible,  few  competent  critics  hesitate 
to  allow  that  it  is  a  work  of  composite  structure ;  that  it  has 
been  edited  and  re-edited  several  times ;  and  that  it  contains 
successive  strata  of  legislation.  Many  critics— rightly  or 
wrongly — lean  to  the  opinion  that  the  Priestly  code  in  the 
Ceremonial  sections  of  Exodus,  Leviticus,  and  Numbers 
may  in  its  present  form  be  no  older  than  the  days  of  Ezekiel, 
or  even  of  Ezra  (B.C.  444) ;  and  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy 
than  the  days  of  Josiah  (b.c.  621). ^     The  Psalms  are  a 

1  The  oldest  nucleus  is  probably  the  Book  of  the  Covenant  (Ex. 
xxi.-xxiii.),  which  some  critics  consider  to  be  recast  in  the  Deutero- 
nomic  code  of  Deut.  xii.-xxvi.  See  Prof.  Kobertson  Smith,  Pro2)hcts 
of  Israel,  pp.  109,  379;  Reuss,  Gescli.  d.  Heil.  Schrift,  §294;  Driver, 
Introduction,  pp.  9,  118-128.     It  is  clear  that  throughout  the  later 


COMPOSITE  BOOKS  41 

collection  of  sacred  poems  in  five  separate  books  of  very 
various  antiquity,  of  which  some  may  mount  to  an  epoch 
earlier  than  David's,  and  some  may  belong  to  the  later 
decadence  of  Hebrew  poetrj^  after  the  Exile.  The  Pro- 
verbs, again,  as  all  admit,  consist  of  foui*  or  five  different 
collections,  and  the  elements  of  song  which  were  current 
among  the  Hebrews  were  often  freely  remodelled.  Three 
at  least  of  the  books  of  the  Prophets— Isaiah,  Micah,  and 
Zechariah— are  now  believed  by  many  to  represent  the 
work  of  six  or  more  different  authors.  Nothing  is  a  more 
entii'e  anachronism  than  the  notion  that  such  critical  in- 
quiries can  be  dashed  to  the  gi'ound  by  bald  assertions  or 
dogmatic  ignorance.  The  revelation  recorded  in  the  Bible 
is  a  jewel  which  God  has  given  us  in  a  setting  of  human 
history,  and  it  is  only  in  connection  with  its  historical 
suiTOundings  that  it  can  be  truly  judged. 

The  New  Testament  represents  the  extant  portion  of  a 
Christian  literature  which  was  much  more  extensive  in  the 
earliest  centuries.^  St.  Luke  tells  us  that  many  Gospels 
were  already  in  existence  when  he  prepared  his  own.     It 

parts  of  history  in  the  Books  of  Kings,  the  Levitic  code  was  either 
unknown  or  disregarded  ;  and  that  in  the  earlier  parts  the  Deutero- 
nomic  law  of  the  one  altar  was  unknown  to,  or  disregarded  by,  the 
Prophets. 

^  '  The  Gospel  to  the  Hebrews ; '  '  The  Gospel  to  the  Egyptians ; ' 
'The  Gospel  of  Peter; '  'The  Travels  of  the  Apostles,'  by  Leucius; 
'  The  Preaching  of  Peter ; '  '  The  Acts  of  Paul  and  Thekla ; '  '  The 
First  and  Second  Epistles  of  Clement ; '  '  The  Epistle  of  Barnabas  ; ' 
the  '  Shepherd '  of  Hermas ;  the  '  Didaehe '  or  Teaching  of  the  Apos- 
tles ;  ' The  Two  Ways ; ' '  The  Apocalj-pse  of  Peter,'  and  other  books, 
all  possessed  a  sort  of  Scriptural  authority  in  the  early  Church ;  and 
several  of  these  works  had  a  circulation  and  popularity  considerably 
in  excess  of  some  of  the  books  now  included  in  the  Canon.  See 
Euseb.  E.  E.  iii.  3,  24,  25 ;  Westcott,  The  Bible  in  the  Church,  pp.  127- 
151 ;  Sanday,  Inspiration,  p.  27. 


42  THE  BIBLE 

is  all  but  certain  that  St.  Paul,  and  probable  that  the  other 
Apostles,  must  have  written  many  letters  which  are  no 
longer  preserved.  (See  2  Thess.  ii.  2,  iii.  17 ;  1  Cor.  v.  9 ; 
2  Cor.  X.  9-11.) 

Some  time  elapsed  before  the  books  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment were  placed  on  an  equal  level  with  those  of  the  Old. 
This  is  strikingly  shown  in  the  earliest  writings  of  the 
Christian  Fathers.  In  the  '  Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apos- 
tles,' in  Clement  and  Barnabas,  there  are  quotations  from 
the  Apostles  and  Evangelists,  but  they  are  not  usually 
addiiced  with  formulee  which  attribute  to  them  the  same 
inspired  authority  as  the  quotations  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment.^ Justin  Martyr  freely  uses  the  Gospels  under  the 
title  of  '  Memoirs ; '  but  he  does  not  name  them,  and  he 
seems  to  think  it  necessary  to  enforce  them  by  the  author- 
ity of  Old  Testament  prophets. 

Papias  was  Bishop  of  Hierapolis  about  a.d.  140.  The 
very  simplicity  of  the  man,  combined  with  the  fact  of  his 
learning,  makes  him  an  unexceptionable  witness.  That 
he  hardly  placed  the  New  Testament  on  the  same  footing 
as  the  Old  appears  from  his  remarks  about  the  Gospels. 
He  speaks  of  them  in  tones  less  reverential  than  we  should 
now  consider  suitable.  He  seems  to  attach  to  them  less 
value— at  any  rate  for  his  immediate  object— than  tradi- 
tions which  he  had  personally  received.  '  I  did  not  con- 
sider,' he  says,  'that  the  things  from  books  were  so 
advantageous  for  my  purpose,  as  things  from  the  living 
and  abiding  Voice.'  - 

And  to  this  day  our  advancing  knowledge  of  textual 
criticism,  together  with  the  deepening  studj^  of  many 
sources  of  information  which  were  once  either  unavailable 

1  But  in  Ep.  Barn.  iv.  14,  ag  ykypanrai  seems  to  refer  to  Matt.  xx.  16. 

2  Quoted  in  Euseb.  H.  E.  iii.  39;  Bishop  Westcott,  u.s.  pp.  95-97. 


CRITICAL  ANALYSIS  43 

or  neglected,  has  necessitated  the  critical  analysis  even  of 
those  books  which  have  been  accepted  as  canonical.  The 
fact  that  certain  passages  were  to  be  found  within  the  four 
corners  of  books  regarded  as  '  inspired,'  has  not  for  a  mo- 
ment stood  in  the  way  of  the  rejection  by  oui'  Revisers  of 
such  words  or  passages  as  did  not  meet  the  standard  of 
modern  critical  requirements.  In  John  viii.  1-11  the  story 
of  the  Woman  Taken  in  Adultery,  exquisite  and  supremely 
valuable  as  it  is,  is  now  bracketed  as  of  doubtful  genuine- 
ness.^ In  Acts  ix.  5,  6  we  look  in  vain  for  '  Lord,  what 
wilt  thou  have  me  to  do  ? '  and  '  It  is  hard  for  thee  to  kick 
against  the  pricks.'  The  verse  '  This  kind  goeth  not  out 
save  by  prayer  and  fasting'  disappears  altogether  from 
Matt.  xvii.  21.  The  word  '  fasting,'  interpolated  in  Mark 
ix.  29  and  1  Cor.  vii.  5  by  the  ascetic  tendency  of  the  early 
Church,  is  unhesitatingly  deleted  in  our  Revised  Version. 
The  simple  creed  of  the  eunuch,  and  the  demand  for  it  by 
the  Deacon  Philip,  disappear  from  Acts  viii.  37.  The  last 
twelve  verses  of  St.  Mark  are  separated  from  the  others  by 
a  gap,  and  the  reader  is  warned  of  their  uncertain  authen- 
ticity. The  famous  verse  about  the  three  heavenly  wit- 
nesses disappears  without  so  much  as  a  notice  from 
1  John  V.  7. 

The  Bible  is  full  of  treasures  new  and  old,  but  the  golden 
keys  of  the  treasure-house  have  been  placed  in  the  hands 
of  men  who  have  often  misused  them,  and  failed  to  ascer- 
tain rightly  their  original  value  and  application. 

If  our  traditional  views  respecting  Scripture  are  liable 
to  that  modification  which  so  many  other  Christian  opin- 
ions undergo  from  age  to  age,  this  is  no  more  than 

^  The  margin  in  the  R.V.  adds :  'Most  of  the  ancient  authorities 
omit  John  vii.  53-viii.  11.  Those  which  contain  it  vary  very  much 
from  each  other.' 


44  THE  BIBLE 

we  should  expect  from  the  entire  method  of  God's  econ- 
omy. 

'There  is  nothing  so  revolutionary/  said  Dr.  Arnold, 
'  because  there  is  nothing  so  unnatural  and  convulsive,  as 
the  strain  to  keep  things  fixed,  when  all  the  world  is,  by 
the  very  law  of  its  creation,  in  eternal  progress ;  and  the 
course  of  all  the  evils  in  the  world  may  be  traced  to  that 
natural  but  most  deadly  evil  of  human  indolence  and  cor- 
ruption that  it  is  our  duty  to  preserve  and  not  to  improve.' 

'I  am  convinced,'  said  John  Robinson  in  his  farewell 
address  to  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  before  they  sailed  in  the 
Mayfloiver  from  Delft  harbour,  *  I  am  convinced  that  the 
Lord  hath  yet  more  light  and  truth  to  break  forth  from 
His  Holy  Word.' 

John  Goodwin,  in  the  preface  to  his  '  Treatise  on  Justi- 
fication,' argues  that  if  America,  so  vast  a  portion  of  the 
world,  remained  unknown  to  all  the  rest  of  mankind  for 
so  many  generations,  '  well  may  it  be  conceived,  not  only 
that  some,  but  many  truths,  yea,  and  those  of  maine  con- 
cernment and  importance,  may  be  yet  unborne.' 

'  Nor  is  it  at  all  incredible,'  says  Bishop  Butler,  '  that  a 
book  which  has  been  so  long  in  the  possession  of  mankind 
should  contain  many  truths  as  yet  undiscovered.  .  .  .  And 
possibly  it  might  be  intended  that  events  as  they  come  to 
pass  should  open  and  ascertain  the  meaning  of  several 
parts  of  Scriptm-e '  {Analogy,  II.  iii.  21). 

Those  who  refuse  to  admit  the  facts  about  the  books  of 
Scripture  which  many  learned  and  devout  students  have 
now  accepted  should  beware  lest  haply  they  be  fighting 
against  God.  This  error  has  been  committed  all  through 
the  long  centuries  by  those  who,  like  Uzzah,  thought  that 
their  aid  was  indispensable  to  prevent  the  Ark  of  God 
from  falling.  Men  constantly  fight  on  behalf  of  theu'  own 
mistakes,  limitations,  prejudices,  and  traditions,  because 


NEW  TRUTHS  45 

they  forget  that  the  ever-broadening  light  of  human  know- 
ledge, which  saves  mankind  from  torpor,  is  light  from 
heaven,  and  is  a  part  of  the  Divine  economy  of  revelation.^ 
Their  opposition  is  always  unavnilinc:.  They  constitute 
themselves  the  defenders  of  exploded  errors,  and  waste 
their  time  in  daubing  tottering  walls  with  untempered 
mortar.  The  majority  of  the  controversialists  who  are  so 
ready  to  hurl  the  names  of  *  infidel '  and  '  heretic '  against 
men  of  a  Avider  knowledge  and  a  deeper  love  of  truth  than 
their  own,  are  in  many  cases  neither  sufficiently  learned, 
nor  sufficiently  able,  nor  sufficiently  endowed  with  un- 
biassed openness  of  mind  and  passionate  love  for  truth, 
to  entitle  them  to  any  authority.  Let  me  mention  a  single 
fact  which  should  teach  them  a  little  more  caution  and 
charity  in  the  judgment  of  views  which  they  deem  so 
'  dangerous.'  They  will  hardly  deny  the  debt  which  the 
English  Church  owes  to  the  profound  learning,  indefati- 
gable diligence,  and  often  brilliant  genius  of  the  great  the- 
ologians of  Germany,  of  whom  many  have  devoted  their 
lives  to  the  laborious  and  self-denying  investigation  of 
critical  problems.  If  only  one  or  two  English  and  German 
scholars  had  accepted  the  main  conclusions  of  the  Higher 
Criticism,  those  who  reject  them  might  justify  themselves 
by  the  authority  of  the  remainder.  But  among  scholars 
of  note  no  one  questions  them.  A  German  supporter  of 
Biblical  infallibility,  Rohnert,  Pastor  in  Waldenburg, 
writing  on  Inspiration  in  1892,  says,  'We  only  know  of 
one  single  theological  Professor  in  Germany  who  still  be- 
lieves in  the  inerrancy  of  Scripture,'  and  he  a  man  very 
little,  if  at  all  known.- 

1  See  strong  warnings  against  this  tendency  in  Matt.  xv.  14,  xxiii. 
7,  8 ;  Jas.  iii.  1 ;  1  Tim.  i.  6,  7 ;  Heb.  v.  12.  Hermas  says :  '  Being 
ignorant,  they  wish  to  set  up  as  teachers.'    Sim.  ix.  22. 

2  '  Wir  kennen  nui*  einen  einzigen  theol.  Professor  in  Deutschland 


46  THE  BIBLE 

Is  any  one  so  uncharitable  as  to  believe  that  aU  these 
Christian  students  have  combined  in  a  conspiracy  of  scep- 
ticism ?  or  can  we  fail  to  see  that  the  number  and  eminence 
of  the  names  show  the  enormous  weight  of  the  evidence 
which  has  compelled  them,  in  the  interests  of  truth  and 
honesty,  to  abandon  views  which  the  revealing  light  of 
God  has  shown  to  be  no  longer  tenable  ?  Is  this  consensus 
of  scholars— approved  as  it  is  by  almost  eveiy  eminent 
theologian  in  our  English,  Scotch,  and  American  Univer- 
sities—to be  waved  aside,  as  a  matter  of  no  moment,  by 
any  worshipper  of  humanly-invented  dogma,  however  in- 
competent and  however  ignorant  ? 

'Upon  the  very  threshold,'  says  Mr.  Gladstone  in  his 
'Impregnable  Rock  of  Holy  Scripture,'  'I  embrace,  in 
what  I  think  a  substantial  sense,  one  of  the  great  canons 
of  modern  criticism,  that  the  Scriptures  are  to  be  treated 
like  any  other  book  in  the  trial  of  their  title.' 

welcher  noch  an  der  Irrtumslosigkeit  der  h.  Schrift  festhalt,  das  ist 
HeiT  Prof.  D.  Nosgen.'  Rohnert,  p.  2.  He  examines  and  tabulates 
the  opinions  of  such  men  as  Professors  Von  Hofmann,  Luthardt, 
Frank,  Zahn,  Dieckhoff,  Kiibel,  Zockler,  Grau,  Cremer,  Volck, 
Schmidt,  and  shows  their  general  accordance  in  the  conviction  that 
complete  infallibility  is  not  an  attribute  of  Scripture.  To  these  may 
be  added  hosts  of  other  names  even  more  distinguished. 


CHAPTER  in 

THE   BIBLE   COMBINES   DIMENSE   VARIETY  WITH 

ESSENTIAL  UNITY. 

Heb.  i.  1 :  TroXv/xepug  ml  TvoXvTpdirug. 

Ps.  xlv.  9  :  'In  vestitu  deaurato,  circumdata  varietate.' 

7)  TToXvTzoiKikoq  ao(pia  tov  Oeov, — Eph.  iii.  10. 
'Slowly  the  Bible  of  the  race  is  writ, 
And  not  on  paper  leaves  nor  leaves  of  stone, 
Each  age,  each  kindred  adds  a  verse  to  it, 
Texts  of  despair  or  hope,  or  joy  or  moan ; 
While  swings  the  sea,  while  mists  the  mountains  shroud, 
WMle  thunder's  surges  burst  on  cliffs  of  cloud, 
Still  at  the  Prophets'  feet  the  nations  sit.'— Lowell. 

From  what  we  have  already  seen,  it  follows  abundantly 
that  the  contents  of  the  Bible  are  not  all  of  the  same  value ; 
not  all  of  the  same  importance. 

In  one  sense  this  is  a  truism ;  but  when  it  is  our  object 
to  clear  away  clouds  of  false  hj-pothesis  and  erring  tradi- 
tion it  is  necessary  to  recall  attention  to  the  most  obvious 
facts.  And  obvious  as  this  truth  is,  the  neglect  of  it 
has  deluged  with  calamities  both  the  Church  and  the 
world. 

Let  it  not  be  overlooked  that  the  view  is  not  only  sanc- 
tioned but  expressly  laid  down  by  both  our  Lord  and  the 

47 


48  THE   BIBLE 

Apostles.  Moses  had  permitted  divorce.  It  miglit  there- 
fore have  been  argued,  and  was  argned,  that  divorce  was 
permissible  under  Divine  sanction.  Such  was  not  our 
Lord's  decision  on  that  question.  He  treated  the  Mo- 
saic concession  as  unprimitive  and  in  itself  undesirable. 
'Moses  for  the  hardness  of  yoiu'  hearts  suffered  you  to 
put  away  your  wives,  but  in  the  beginning  it  was  not  so.' 
St.  Paul,  and  St.  Peter,  and  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews,  had  thoroughly  grasped  the  force  of  that 
lesson.  The  vision  of  St.  Peter  on  the  roof  at  Joppa  em- 
phasised in  his  mind  the  parable  about  what  goeth  into  a 
man  and  what  cometh  out  of  him,  in  which  Christ  had 
reversed  the  law  of  Moses  and  made  all  meats  clean.  St. 
Peter  and  St.  Paul  did  not  hesitate  to  speak  of  the  Leviti- 
cal  ordinances  as  '  a  yoke  that  neither  we  nor  our  fathers 
were  able  to  bear ; '  as  '  the  curse  of  the  law ; '  as  *  dead 
works ; '  as  '  weak  and  beggarly  rudiments.'  ^  The  writer 
to  the  Hebrews  gradually  carried  on  his  convincing  argu- 
ment till  at  its  climax  he  ventures  openly  to  treat  the  law 
as  the  mere  scaffoldage  of  religion,  and  to  declare  that  its 
institutions  had  now  become  inherently  weak  and  profit- 
less ;^  that  they  were  in  fact  mere  '  carnal  ordinances.'  ^ 

The  preciousness  of  the  Bible  as  a  revelation  of  God 
through  the  minds  of  men  is  indefinitely  increased  by 

1  Acts  XV.  10 ;  Gal.  iii.  13,  iv.  3,  9 ;  Heb.  vi.  1. 

2  Heb.  vii.  18.  'The  way  in  which  the  New  Testament  writers 
use  the  Old  Testament  shows  the  complexity  of  the  whole  subject. 
Eeverence  and  appeal  to  authority  are  everywhere  manifest,  but 
also  a  measure  of  freedom  for  which  we  are  hardly  prepared,  and  an 
evident  desire  to  dwell  on  the  substantial  meaning  rather  than  the 
form  of  the  record,  the  spirit  rather  than  the  letter  of  the  Word.'— 
Prof.  Davison. 

3  For  similar  views  in  the  Prophets  see  Jer.  iii.  16,  vii.  21,  22, 
xxxi.  31-33 ;  Is.  i.  11-17,  &c. 


VARIETY  49 

these  differences  of  standpoint.  For  truth  is  many-sided, 
and  the  total  effect  of  Scriptui*al  teaching  is  enhanced  by- 
its  exquisite  variety.  The  Bible  is  not,  like  the  Qui-'an,  or 
the  Zend-Avesta,  or  the  Analects  of  Confucius,  the  work 
of  a  single  intellect.  It  speaks  to  us  in  various  languages, 
it  speaks  to  us  in  many  voices.  It  furnishes  us  with  the 
wisdom  and  experience  of  widely  different  ages ;  it  springs 
from  the  deep  heart  of  humanity  under  the  most  opposite 
conditions  of  patnarchal  simplicity  or  complex  ci\dlisation. 
The  stream  of  revelation  is  swollen  by  multitudes  of  rills 
from  different  fountain-heads,  in  mountain  ranges  sepa- 
rated from  each  other  as  far  as  the  east  is  from  the  west. 
God,  as  we  are  told  in  the  singularly  pregnant  introduc- 
tion to  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  spake  in  times  past 
unto  the  fathers  by  the  prophets  '  f ragmentarily  and  multi- 
fariously,' '  in  many  parts  and  many  manners.'  The  wis- 
dom enshrined  in  Scripture  is,  as  St.  Paul  said  to  the 
Ephesians,  a  wisdom  '  richly  variegated.'  For  this  reason 
the  old  writers  delighted  to  compare  the  Church  to  'the 
King's  daughter'  of  the  Psalmist  who  is  'all  glorious 
within,'  and  who  is  '  brought  unto  the  King  in  raiment  of 
needlework,  wi'ought  about  with  divers  colours'— circiow- 
amicta  variefatibus:  — 

God's  Spouse  knows  what  will  please  her  Lover  best, 
And  in  a  various-coloured  Robe  is  drest.^ 

This  variety  of  Scripture  is  one  reason  why  it  is  of  all 
books  the  most  universal.  Wliy  is  it  that  it  has  proved 
to  be  equally  dear  to  men  of  all  nations,  of  all  times,  of 
all  conditions  ?  Why  does  it  come  home  ;ilike  to  the  pro- 
foundest  philosopher  and  to  tlie  little  negro  child  ?  Why 
is  it  to  be  found  in  the  wigwam  of  the  sub- Arctic  Indian 

1  Bishop  Ken. 

4 


50  THE   BIBLE 

and  in  the  cabinet  of  emperors ;  iu  the  knapsack  of  the 
rough  soldier  and  on  the  bed  of  the  dying  maiden  ?  Be- 
cause its  deepest  truths  came  from  stirrings  of  the  Spirit 
in  the  common  heart  of  mankind  which  is  the  same 
essentially  amid  all  differences  and  under  aU  disguises. 

What  other  book  or  literature  f  m-nishes  us  with  so  many 
points  of  insight  into  the  working  of  men's  minds  ?  Now 
a  single  Eastern  emir  is  called  out  of  an  idolatrous  world 
to  preserve  the  knowledge  of  the  one  true  God;  now  a 
great  lawgiver  delivers  his  moral  code  to  a  perverse  mul- 
titude of  slaves  and  fugitives  from  a  granite  crag  in  the 
wilderness ;  now  seers  and  kings  address  a  nation  in  the 
zenith  of  its  prosperity  or  on  the  eve  of  its  desolation; 
now  priests  or  courtiers  console  its  melancholy  exile  or 
inspirit  its  feeble  resuscitation ;  now  a  little  band  of  '  un- 
learned and  ignorant  men '  record  the  Uf  e  of  its  Divine  yet 
rejected  Messiah ;  now  a  converted  Pharisee  preaches  that 
new  Gospel  with  intense  fire  and  wisdom ;  now  a  GaHlean 
fisherman  utters  words  of  the  deepest  spirituality  and 
clothes  in  mystic  gorgeousness  his  heart-thriQing  Apoca- 
lypse. Peoples  and  languages— Egypt,  Palestine,  Assyria, 
Babylonia,  Persia,  Greece,  Rome— contribute  then*  quotas 
to  its  wisdom. 

As  the  three  greatest  nations  of  antiquity  uttered  their 
involuntary  testimony  to  Christ  in  the  title  on  His  cross, 
so  did  they  add  the  best  results  of  their  history,  their 
language,  and  their  organisation  to  the  totality  of  His 
power.  It  is  true  in  a  deeper  sense  than  PhUo  grasped 
that  '  the  servant  of  the  Law  is  necessarily  the  best  citizen 
of  the  World.' 

Nor  have  we  even  now  exhausted  the  diversity  of  the 
elements  of  which  this  revelation  is  composed.  On  one 
page  we  are  reading  the  passionate  pleadings  of  an  afflicted 


RICH   DIVERSITY  51 

Chaldean  noble ;  on  another  the  rhythmic  utterances  of  a 
great  Mesopotaraian  sorcerer;  on  others  the  cynical  con- 
fessions of  a  sated  worldling,  or  the  pathetic  cry  of  a  re- 
pentant king.  Here  we  have  exultant  thanksgivings  for 
some  splendid  deliverance  j  hard  by  we  find  the  impas- 
sioned denunciation  of  some  intolerable  wi-ong.  Witliin 
a  few  pages  we  find  a  stately  poem,  or  a  gorgeous  vision, 
or  a  closely  reasoned  argument,  or  the  decree  of  some 
Eastern  autocrat,  or  the  brief  letter  of  an  aged  prisoner 
entreating  forgiveness  for  an  unprofitable  slave.  Such 
and  so  varied  are  its  elements.  '  Its  light,'  says  Dr.  New- 
man, '  is  like  the  body  of  heaven  in  its  clearness ;  its  vast- 
ness  like  the  bosom  of  the  sea ;  its  variety  like  scenes  of 
nature ! '  ^ 

Thus  what  we  call  the  Bible  was  wi'itten  by  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men ;  by  the  poor  as  well  as  by  the  rich ; 
by  the  lowly  as  well  as  by  the  exalted ;  by  autocrats  and 
peasants ;  by  priests  and  prophets ;  by  warriors  and  hus- 
bandmen ;  by  poets  and  chroniclers ;  by  passionate  enthu- 
siasts and  calm  reasoners;  by  unlearned  provincials  and 
Alexandi'ian  theologians;  by  philosophers  who  attained 
from  reasoning,  and  mystics  who  saw  by  intuition,  and 
practical  men  who  learnt  by  experience,  the  truths  of  God. 
Touched  by  one  of  these  many  fingers,  our  hearts  cannot 
but  respond.  At  the  turning  of  a  page  we  may  listen  to 
Solomon  the  magnificent,  or  Amos  the  herdsman ;  to 
Nebuchadrezzar  the  Babylonian  conqueror,  or  Matthew 
the  Galilean  publican.  If  St.  Paul  be  too  difficult  for  us, 
we  have  the  practical  plainness  of  St.  Peter ;  if  St.  John 
soars  too  high  for  us  on  the  eagle  \\dngs  of  his  mysticism, 
we  can  rejoice  in  the  simple  sweetness  of  St.  Luke ;  if  we 
find  the  Apocalypse  too  passionate  and  enigmatic,  we  can 

1  Tracts  for  the  Times,  No.  87. 


52  THE  BIBLE 

rest  in  the  homely  counsels  of  St.  James.  The  Scriptures 
have  '  shallows  which  the  lamb  can  ford/  as  well  as  '  depths 
which  the  elephant  must  swim.'  They  have  Poetry  for  the 
student ;  History  for  the  statesman ;  Psalms  for  the  tem- 
ple ;  Proverbs  for  the  mart.  They  have  appeals,  denun- 
ciations, arguments,  stories  of  battle,  songs  of  love.  They 
have  mountains  and  valleys,  shadow  and  sunshine,  calm 
and  tempest,  stormy  waves  and  still  waters,  lihes  of  the 
green  pasture  and  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  weary 
lands.  'Marvellous  is  the  depth  of  Thy  utterances,'  ex- 
claims St.  Augustine.  'Its  smiling  surface  allui'es  the 
little  ones ;  yet  marvellous  is  its  depth,  my  God,  marvel- 
lous its  depth  !  It  is  a  shudder  to  gaze  into  it,  the  shudder 
of  reverence  and  the  thrill  of  love  ! '  ^ 

And  yet  the  Scriptures  have  a  glory  far  more  consum- 
mate than  all  this,  in  that  they  contain  the  authentic 
record  of  the  Incarnate  Christ,  the  immediate  revelation 
of  the  Son  of  God  Himself. 

By  bearing  in  mind  the  rich  diversity  of  Scripture  we 
not  only  gain  elements  of  the  deepest  interest,  but  we  are 
proceeding  on  the  right  path  for  its  due  comprehension. 
We  are  in  a  better  position  for  understanding  the  truth 
of  God  when  we  have  studied  the  peculiarities  of  the  lan- 
guage in  which  it  is  embodied,  and  know  something  of  the 
individuahty  with  which  the  expression  of  it  is  tinged.  To 
the  variety  of  sources  from  which  the  revelation  comes  are 
due  both  the  inexhaustible  interest  of  the  Bible  and  its 
Divine  universality.  In  this  it  is  wholly  unlike  the  sacred 
books  of  other  religions.    It  has  something  for  all  nations. 

1  'Mira  profnnditas  eloquiorum  tuorum,  quorum  ecce  ante  nos 
superficies  blandiens  parvulis ;  sed  mira  profunditas,  Deus  meus, 
mira  profunditas  !  Horror  est  iutendere  in  eam ;  horror  honoris  et 
tremor  amoris.'— Aug.  Co)tf.  xii.  14. 


RICH  DIVERSITY  53 

In  reading  the  Qur'an  we  can  think  only  of  Arabia ;  in 
reading  Confucius  only  of  China;  in  reading  the  Zend- 
Avesta  only  of  Persia;  in  reading  the  Vedas  only  of 
Hindostan.  But  in  the  Bible  we  meet  with  all  races,  from 
Arabian  troglod}i;es  to  Greek  poets,  from  Galilean  fisher- 
men to  Roman  consuls.  From  Nineveh  to  Babylon,  from 
Babylon  to  Damascus,  from  Damascus  to  Jerusalem,  from 
Jerusalem  to  Tyre,  and  the  isles  of  the  Gentiles,  and  Athens, 
and  Corinth,  and  Rome,  we  see  the  Light  of  revelation  ever 
streaming  westwards  through  the  pages  of  the  Bible. 

The  giant  forms  of  empires  on  their  way 
To  ruin 

fling  their  colossal  shadows  across  its  pages.  The  Bible 
is  at  once  a  sacred  Iliad  and  a  sacred  Odyssey.  Now  its 
pages  ring  with  the  battles  of  the  warrior,  with  their  con- 
fused noise  and  garments  rolled  in  blood  ;^  now  the  sea  is 
dashing  in  our  faces  as  we  traverse  it  in  the  ship  of  Jonah, 
or  toss  a  night  and  day  among  its  breakers  with  St.  Paul. 
It  has,  indeed,  deep  speculations  for  the  philosophic  mind, 
but  for  the  most  part  it  is  intensely  concrete.  There  is  in 
it  no  stifling  system,  no  chilling  gloom,  no  self-centred 
absorption,  no  frozen  sea  of  abstractions.  The  sanctimo- 
nious formalism  of  the  Pharisee,  the  selfish  and  unnatural 
asceticism  of  the  Buddhist,  the  chill  uncertainty  of  the 
Confucian,  find  no  sanction  here ;  nor  are  we  placed  at  the 
mercy  of  the  systematising  refinements  of  the  schoolman, 
and  the  cruel  tjTanny  of  priestcraft.  The  Bible  shows  us 
that  religion  may  be  as  exquisite  as  music,  as  glowing  as 
art,  as  rich  as  a  gifted  nature,  as  broad  as  a  noble  life.  It 
is  '  as  universal  as  our  race,  as  individual  as  ourselves.' 
Hence,  to  the  homihst  and  the  preacher,  dulness  is  an 

1  Is.  ix.  5  (corrected  in  R.V.). 


54  THE  BIBLE 

inexcusable  fault,  and  one  which  should  be  most  earnestly 
avoided.  If  the  preacher  is  dull— duU  to  all  his  hearers- 
he  cannot  possibly  rouse  their  consciences  or  touch  their 
hearts.  Dulness  might  be  pardonable  if  we  had  no  better 
text-book  than  the  Qur'an  or  the  Tripitaka ;  but  it  is  hardly 
pardonable  when  our  sacred  Book  is  so  intensely  and  widely 
humanitarian.  Where  the  human,  the  concrete,  and. the 
individual  element  is  introduced,  hearers  must  find  some- 
thing to  interest  and  instruct  them ;  for  the  experience  of 
one  heart  is  more  or  less  the  experience  of  all  hearts,  and 
there  is  no  one  who  does  not  sympathise  with  the  multi- 
tude in  the  Roman  theatre  who  rose  to  shout  their  de- 
lighted applause  on  hearing  the  line  of  the  dramatist. 

Homo  sum ;  humani  nihil  a  me  alienum  puto. 

To  the  Buddhist  the  incidents,  whether  real  or  legendary, 
in  the  life  of  the  Buddha  Sakya  Mouni  furnish  a  theme  of 
endless  interest ;  the  Chinese  are  never  tired  of  even  the 
dry  and  uneventful  records  of  the  biography  of  Kung-foo- 
tze  ;  but  the  Bible  furnishes  us  with  thousands  of  thrilling 
incidents,  and  with  human  experiences  under  the  most 
varied  conditions.  Not  only  so,  but  it  comprises  the 
writings  of  at  least  fifty  different  authors,  who  lived  in 
the  most  widely  separated  spheres.  The  voice  which 
speaks  to  us  is  now  that  of  a  Gentile  sorcerer,  now  that 
of  a  suffering  prisoner,  now  that  of  a  conquering  king. 
Lawgivers  like  Moses,  autocrats  like  Solomon,  warriors 
hke  Joshua,  historians  like  Samuel,  prophets  like  Isaiah, 
scribes  like  Ezra,  poets  hke  Da\'id,  governors  like  Nehe- 
miah,  exiles  like  Daniel,  peasants  like  Amos,  fishennen  like 
Peter  and  John,  tax-gatherers  like  Matthew,  rabbis  like 
Paul,  have  all  contributed  to  the  sacred  page.  We  may 
truly  say  that  it  is  like  the  ash-tree,  Ygdi-asil,  the  great 


RICH  DIVERSITY  55 

tree  of  Northern  fable,  whose  leaves  were  the  lives  of  men. 
It  is  for  this  very  reason  that  nations,  like  birds  of  the  air, 
shelter  themselves  under  the  shadow  of  it.     It  is  a  vine  of 

God's  planting, 

which  outspread 
With  growth  of  shadowing  leaf  and  clusters  rare, 
Reacheth  to  every  corner  under  heaven, 
Deep-rooted  in  the  living  soil  of  truth ; 
So  that  men's  hopes  and  fears  take  refuge  in 
The  fragrance  of  its  complicated  glooms 
And  cool  impleachSd  twilights. 

In  both  Testaments  there  is  diversity ;  but  whereas  there 
are  only  nine  authors  for  the  twenty-seven  books  of  the 
New  Testament,  and  the  great  bulk  of  it  is  the  work  of 
two,  on  the  other  hand  in  the  thirty-nine  books  of  the  Old 
Testament  we  enjoy  the  wisdom  of  a  very  much  larger 
number  of  contributors. 

We  have  seen  the  singular  differences  of  station  and 
circumstances  among  those  to  whom  God  sent  His  message 
of  inspii'ation.  But,  further,  by  what  divers  ways  also  is 
their  message  delivered  to  us !  It  came  sometimes  in  the 
facts  of  history,  sometimes  in  isolated  promises,  sometimes 
by  Urim,  sometimes  by  dreams  and  voices  and  similitudes, 
sometimes  by  types  and  sacrifices,  sometimes  by  prophets 
specially  commissioned.  It  takes  the  form  now  of  annals, 
now  of  philosophic  meditation,  now  of  a  sermon,  now  of 
an  idyl,  now  of  a  lyric  song.  Sometimes  it  expands, 
through  chapter  after  chapter,  the  details  of  a  single  day 
in  an  individual  life ;  sometimes  it  crushes  into  one  single 
clause  the  sweeping  summary  of  the  records  of  twenty 
generations.  At  one  time  it  will  give  the  minutest  inci- 
dents of  one  event  in  a  single  reign ;  at  another  it  Avill 
heap  the  dust  of  oblivion  over  dynasties  of  a  hundred 
kings.     We  may  compare  its  coui'se  with  that  of  a  stream, 


56  THE   BIBLE 

which  sometimes  dwindles  into  a  rock-bound  rivulet,  and 
sometimes  broadens  into  a  shoreless  sea.  But  it  is  a  stream 
whose  fountains  lie  deep  in  the  everlasting  hills.  Its  sources 
are  hidden  in  the  depths  of  a  past  eternity,  and  its  issues 
in  the  abysm  of  an  illimitable  future.  It  begins  with  the 
chaos  of  Genesis,  '  vast  and  void ; '  it  ends  with  a  book 
which  has  been  called  '  the  majestic  image  of  a  high  and 
stately  tragedy,  shutting  up  and  intermingling  her  solemn 
scenes  and  acts  with  a  sevenfold  chorus  of  hallelujahs  and 
harping  symphonies.' 

Hence  the  Bible  is  inextricably  mingled  with  all  that  is 
greatest  in  human  history,  national  literatm-e,  and  indi- 
vidual life.  Its  influence  on  literature  has  been  invaluable 
and  supreme.  Dante  and  Milton  are  wholly  based  on  the 
words  and  truths  of  Scripture;  Shakespeare  is  full  of 
them,  and  Wordsworth  and  Tennyson  and  Browning. 
George  Eliot  and  Victor  Hugo  borrowed  from  them  their 
best  ideals ;  Carlyle,  Newman,  and  Ruskin  were  saturated 
with  them  from  childhood.  The  laws  of  Alfred  and 
Charlemagne  were  inspired  by  them.  Judas  Maccabaeus 
caught  from  them  the  fire  of  his  patriotism;  Gustavus 
Adolphus  pored  over  them  before  he  charged  at  Liitzen ; 
Cromwell  was  found  absorbed  in  them  on  the  eve  of  Nase- 
by.  They  have  been  on  the  lips  of  warriors  and  statesmen 
and  martyrs  at  the  sublimest  moments  of  their  lives,  and 
so  entirely  have  they  decided  the  destinies  of  nations  that 
but  for  them  the  civilisation  of  Europe  might  still  have 
been  as  cruel  as  that  of  Egypt  and  as  corrupt  as  that  of 
Rome. 

Yet  the  essential  unity  of  the  writings  is  hardly  less  re- 
markable than  their  infinite  variety,  and  in  spite  of  its 
manifold  elements  the  Bible  may  be  regarded,  under  cer- 
tain limitations,  as  an  organic  whole. 


PROFOUND   INFLUENCE  57 

It  has  the  unity  of  the  nationality  from  the  bosom  of 
which  it  mainly  sprang.  It  has  the  unity  of  Monotheism. 
It  has  the  unity  which  rises  from  the  fact  that  it  deals 
exclusively  with  religious  ends,  or  vnth  ends  which  were 
regarded  as  bearing  upon  religion.  It  has,  lastly,  the 
unity  which  rises  from  its  being  the  history  of  the  dealings 
of  God  with  one  chosen  nation ;  with  all  other  nations ; 
wdth  individual  men ;  and  with  the  whole  race  of  mankind. 
It  describes  the  gradual  education  of  the  Hebrews,  of  the 
heathen,  and  of  many  separate  souls,  in  the  knowledge  of 
the  Will  of  the  Supreme.  The  deepest  principle  of  spiri- 
tual life,  which  consists  in  the  sense  of  man's  communion 
with  the  living  God,  runs  thi'ough  all  its  diversities,  and 
elevates  even  its  rudimentary  moralitj'.  Above  all  it  finds 
its  unifying  element  in  Christ.  This  was  pointed  out  by 
the  Lord  Himself.  '  Ye  search  the  Scriptures,'  He  said  to 
the  Jews,  '  because  ye  think  that  in  them  ye  have  eternal 
life,  and  these  are  they  which  bear  witness  of  Me.'  '  If  ye 
believed  Moses,'  He  said,  'ye  would  believe  Me,  for  he 
Avrote  of  Me.  But  if  ye  believe  not  his  writings,  how  shall 
ye  believe  My  words ?'^  'Your  father  Abraham,'  He 
said,  'rejoiced  to  see  My  day;  and  he  saw  it  and  was 
glad.' 2 

In  these  words  Christ  seems  to  point  out,  as  in  one 
illuminating  flash,  that  the  centre  of  all  that  was  best, 
gi'eatest,  and  truest  in  the  Old  Dispensation  was  that  hope 
of  the  Divine  coming  Deliverer,  which  was  revealed  to 
man  after  he  had  first  lost  the  Eden  of  Innocence,  and 
which  shone  like  a  pillar  of  fire  on  his  horizon  during  his 
long  wanderings  through  the  wilderness  of  time.  It  was 
this  hope  which  sustained  Israel  in  many  an  hour  of  dark- 
ness and  led  him  forward  to  the  dawn  of  that  great  day 
1  John  V.  39,  46,  47,  2  John  viii.  56, 


58  THE  BIBLE 

when  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  should  rise  upon  the  world 
with  healing  on  His  wings. 

The  fact  that,  from  the  age  of  Origen  onwards,  allegory 
and  typology  have  been  exaggerated  to  a  most  artificial 
extent,  and  that  many  events  and  allusions  and  customs 
have  been  made  prophetic  of  Christ  in  which  nothing  of 
prophecy  was  intended,  must  not  bhnd  us  to  the  fact  that 
the  Old  Testament  is  full  of  Christ ;  for  the  very  heart  and 
essence  of  the  Old  Dispensation,  as  its  features  are  ex- 
hibited in  the  writings  of  historians,  lawgivers,  and  pro- 
phets, was  the  great  and  unquenchable  Messianic  hope. 
In  the  Old  Testament  Christ  is  prefigured ;  in  the  New 
Testament  He  is  revealed.  In  His  teaching  we  see  in  aU 
their  fulness  those  constant  elements  which  all  rehgion 
strives  more  and  more  clearly  to  express— the  holiness  and 
love  of  God,  the  dignity  and  brotherhood  of  man.  And 
so  He  stands  at  the  centre  of  all  history  as  the  fulfilment 
of  aU  the  yearnings  of  the  past,  the  justification  of  all  the 
hopes  of  the  future.  '  He  lifted  the  gate  of  the  centuries 
off  its  hinges  with  His  bleeding  hand.'  Apart  from  Him 
aU  the  deepest  elements  of  the  Old  Testament  become  un- 
intelligible. The  Law  is  but  the  slave  which  leads  us  to 
His  school.^  He  is  the  bruiser  of  the  serpent's  head  in 
Genesis,  and  the  Lamb  as  it  had  been  slain  in  the  midst  of 
the  thi'one  in  Revelation.  He  is  the  Paschal  Lamb  of 
Moses ;  the  true  star  and  sceptre  of  Balaam's  vision  j  the 

1  This  is  rightly  insisted  on  in  our  7th  Article,  and  will  not  be  in 
the  least  impugned  by  anything  here  brought  forward.  'The  Old 
Testament,'  we  are  there  told,  *is  not  contrary  to  the  New,  for  both 
in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  everlasting  life  is  offered  to  mankind 
by  Christ.'  As  against  heretics  like  Mareion  and  some  of  the  ancient 
Gnostics  and  modern  fanatics,  who  treated  the  Old  Testament  as 
coming  from  an  evil  or  imperfect  demon,  the  retention  of  this  Article 
was  both  necessary  and  instructive. 


ESSENTIAL   UNITY  59 

promised  Son  of  David ;  Isaiah's  rod  of  the  stem  of  Jesse. 
The  testimony  to  Him  is  the  spirit  of  prophecy,  and  of 
Him  bear  all  the  prophets  witness,  as  many  as  have  spoken 
from  Samuel  and  those  that  foUow  after.  The  due  com- 
prehension of  this  vast  hope,  and  the  power  of  unfolding 
it,  will  be  one  of  the  highest  results  which  can  reward  the 
study  of  the  preacher  who  desires  to  fulfil  the  duty  of  a 
wase  scribe  by  drawing  from  his  treasures  things  old  as 
well  as  new. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  '  ALLEGORICAL  METHOD '  OF  EXEGESIS  UNTENABLE. 

'HjEereticis  mos  est  simplicia  quseque  torquere.' — Tert.  c.  Her- 
mog.  xix. 

'  Eat  in  peace  the  bread  of  Scripture,  without  troubling  thyself 
about  the  particles  of  sand  which  may  have  been  mixed  with  it  by 
the  millstone.  — Bengel. 

But  while  the  Old  Testament  is  not  contrary  to  the  New, 
since  alike  in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  '  everlasting 
life  is  offered  to  mankind  through  Christ/  yet  the  Old  Tes- 
tament does  not  stand  on  the  same  level  with  the  New. 
The  treatment  which  attaches  equal  importance,  equal 
value,  equal  validity  to  all  the  books  of  the  Bible— the 
teacliing  which  represents  all  their  statements  as  equally 
authoritative,  and  which  binds  us  to  accept  them  without 
reference  to  the  ages  or  circumstances  in  which  they  origi- 
nated—is unnatural,  dangerous,  and  false. 

The  Bible  contains  an  ever-advancing  revelation,  and 
there  can  be  no  final  rule  for  Christians  which  is  not  in 
accordance  with  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 

The  great  fact  which  the  Jewish  and  Christian  Chui'ches 
failed  for  ages  to  understand  was  that  God  revealed  Him- 
self slowly  and  gradually.  There  were  times  of  ignorance 
which  God  winked  at  in  the  Jewish  as  well  as  in  the 

60 


A   PROGRESSIVE   REVELATION  61 

heathen  world.  In  many  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment the  spiritual  insight  is  limited,  the  moral  standard 
as  yet  imperfect.  Those  who  have  undertaken  to  defend 
aU  the  deeds  committed  by  patriarchs,  and  sometimes  nar- 
rated ^vithout  disapproval— the  wild  actions  of  kings  and 
patriots,  even  when  invested  with  the  sanction  of  priests 
and  prophets — have  done  so  by  an  allegorical  method 
which  may,  indeed,  within  subordinate  limits,  be  adopted 
for  purposes  of  illustration,  as  it  was  by  St.  Paul,  but 
which  cannot  be  used  to  set  aside  plain  history. 

The  very  meaning  of  'a  progressive  revelation'  can 
only  be  that  the  earlier  stages  of  this  revelation  are  as  yet 
transitory  and  imperfect  as  compared  with  its  latest 
developments. 

As  a  matter  of  plain  honesty  and  common  sense,  it 
ought  to  be  stated  that  the  morality  of  some  passages  of 
the  Bible  is  not  in  accord  with  the  words  of  Christ. 
Wlien  we  maintain  the  supremacy  of  the  moral  teaching 
of  the  Bible  we  mean  the  supremacy  of  that  teaching 
which  is  stamped  by  the  sanction  of  consciences  which  the 
Gospel  has  illuminated. 

The  imperfect  insight  of  an  earher  dispensation  sanc- 
tioned, or  at  least  tolerated,  passions,  practices,  and  in- 
stitutions which  the  fully  enlightened  Christian  conscience 
has  learnt  justly  to  abhor. 

God  revealed  Himself  to  man  part  by  part ;  He  lifted  the 
veil  fold  by  fold.  It  is  grievous  to  recall  how  many  a 
blood-stained  page  of  history  might  have  been  redeemed 
from  its  agony  and  desolation  if  men  had  only  remembered 
that  the  law  of  the  Old  Testament  was  as  yet  an  imperfect 
law,  and  the  morality  of  the  Old  Testament  a  not  yet,  in 
all  instances,  fully  instructed  morality. 

Such  foUies  and  iniquities  (of  which  many  find  theii- 


62  THE  BIBLE 

pale  reflex  and  faint  analogy  even  in  the  present  day) 
could  never  have  occurred  if  men  had  studied  the  Bible  in 
the  light  of  the  truths  which  we  have  just  been  consider- 
ing. And  those  truths  were  enunciated  not  only  by  St. 
Paul,  the  great  and  learned  Apostle,  but,  as  we  shall  see 
later,  by  our  blessed  Lord  Himself.  He  pointed  out  that 
the  moral  conceptions  of  the  Old  Testament  were  but  as  the 
starhght  compared  to  the  glory  of  the  risen  day.  If  this 
teaching  of  Christ  be  not  reverently  borne  in  mind  we 
shaU  be  constantly  tempted  to  that  treatment  of  the  Old 
Testament  which  runs  through  whole  commentaries,  and 
which,  by  the  straining  of  words  and  the  invention  of 
hypotheses,  aims  at  concealing  all  semblance  of  difference 
between  the  tone  of  a  Moses  and  of  a  St.  John,  or  between 
the  degree  of  enlightenment  in  the  moral  conduct  of  a 
Jael  or  a  Mary  of  Bethany.  Nothing  but  confusion  and 
retrogression  can  come  of  the  attempt  to  elevate  the  imper- 
fect conceptions  of  early  Judaism  to  the  dignity  of  Gospel 
morality.  Scripture  has  itself  made  clear  to  us,  in  words 
as  plain  as  it  is  possible  to  utter,  that  the  degree  both  of 
religion  and  morality  which  was  vouchsafed  to  the  patri- 
archs was  altogether  inferior  to  that  which  has  been 
granted  to  us. 

It  cannot  be  too  distinctly  understood  that  we  are  free 
to  judge  from  the  standpoint  of  Christianity  every  page 
and  every  verse  of  the  Old  Testament  which  falls  below 
the  rule  which  Christ  set  forth.  If  dark  deeds  are  ascribed 
to  God's  command,  we,  who  know  that  He  is  of  purer  eyes 
than  to  behold  iniquity,  can  only  suppose  that,  to  the  de- 
fective knowledge  of  them  of  old  time,  those  deeds  ap- 
peared to  be  in  accordance  with  His  will.  Notliing  can  be 
regarded  by  us  as  the  message  of  God  which  the  Spirit  of 
the  Son  of  God  has  taught  us  to  reject  and  to  condemn. 


ERRORS   OF   PHILO  63 

We  must  finally  repudiate  the  notion,  assumed  by  the 
Rabbis  and  blindly  accepted  by  Christians,  that  a  deed 
must  be  right  if  it  was  done  by  a  Samuel  or  a  David,  and 
recorded  without  express  condemnation. 

The  method  generally  adopted  was  the  method  of 
allegorising.  The  practice  began  among  the  later  Jews 
when  they  found  that  there  were  many  things  in  their 
Scriptures  which  could  not  be  successfully  defended  from 
the  taunts  of  heathen  adversaries. 

This  was  the  method  adopted  by  the  learned  and  esti- 
mable Jewish  philosopher  Philo. 

He  had  accepted,  not  from  Scriptui-e  but  from  the  Greek 
philosophers,  and  especially  from  Plato,  the  opinion  that 
inspii'atiou  anniliilated  the  activity  of  the  human  faculties ; 
and  he  had  fallen  under  the  Eastern  Manichean  influences 
which  regarded  all  matter,  and  therefore  the  human  bod}', 
as  essentially  e\al.^  He  thought  therefore  that  there  could 
be  no  real  intercommunion  between  the  divine  and  the 
human,  and  that  God  could  only  reveal  Himself  to  man  by 
sinking  him  into  a  state  of  trance  and  by  absorbing  the 
whole  soul  in  such  a  way  as  to  leave  no  element  of  imper- 
fection in  the  messages  which  He  communicated. 

This  theory  was  purely  heathen.  Nothing  which  re- 
sembled it  was  to  be  found  in  the  Bible  itself.  The  Bibli- 
cal wi'iters  make  no  such  claim  for  ninety-nine  hundredths 
of  their  utterances.  The  phrase  '■  Thus  saith  the  Lord '  had 
no  such  meaning.  It  was  the  common  formula  of  all 
prophets,  and  attentive  examination  shows  that  the  phrase 

1  Yet  he  did  not  confine  inspiration  to  Scripture,  .but  thought  it  at- 
tainable by  good  men  {De  Cherub.  $  14) ;  himself  claims  denlrj-rrTeladai, 
and  says  that  every  good  man  is  a  prophet  {Quis  rcr.  div.  hccr.  $  52; 
De  Migr.  Ahr.  iii.  4f 6 ;  De  Somniis,  ii.  etc.  See  Gfrorer,  Philo,  i.  59, 
and  comp.  Ecclus.  xxiv.  33,  1.  28. 


64  THE   BIBLE 

was  simply  the  natural  expression  of  siacerity  and  convic- 
tion. The  voice  from  heaven  which  spoke  to  them  was 
addressed  to  their  own  consciences. 

No  prophet  intended  to  intimate  that  he  had  heard  the 
articulate  utterances  of  the  Eternal,  but  every  true  prophet 
believed  that  he  spoke  in  accordance  with  that  which  the 
Spirit  of  the  Eternal  had  revealed.  He  said  '  Thus  saith 
the  Lord'  whenever  he  felt  himself  commissioned  to  de- 
liver to  his  people  the  highest  conclusions  to  which  he  be- 
lieved that  God  had  led  his  thoughts.  The  Hebrew  pro- 
phets knew  nothing  of  the  notion  that  they  only  arrived 
at  truth  by  the  obliteration  of  theii'  human  faculties.^ 

Gradually,  however,  the  fetish- worship  to  which  a  faith- 
less religionism  constantly  tends,  and  man's  vain  desire  for 
some  infallible  authority  on  all  the  questions  which  sur- 
round his  life,  robbed  the  Jews  of  the  blessed  truth  that 
man  may  hold  constant  communion  with  his  Father  in 
heaven,  and  substituted  for  it  the  hard,  mechanical  notion 
that  God  had  put  a  Book  in  His  own  place,  and  that  this 
Book  was  a  sort  of  magical  amulet  which  they  must  sur- 
round with  artificial  reverence.  Instead  of  regarding  their 
Bible  as  a  number  of  books  written  for  men  by  men  who 
—though  their  knowledge  was  partial  and  their  illumina- 
tion imperfect— were  yet  to  a  high  degree  under  the 
guidance  of  God,  they  gradually  described  it  as  a  Book 
altogether  supernatural.  Philo  put  the  finishing  touch  to 
their  theories  in  his  Platonic  hj^othesis,  which  contra- 
dicted alike  the  plain  indications  of  the  Old  Testament. 
'  The  spirits  of  the  prophets,'  says  St.  Paul, '  are  subject  to 
the  prophets.'  - 

Philo  applied  his  alien  and  baseless  theory  especially  to 

^  St.  Chrysostom  truly  says,  6  de  irpo^^rig  .  .  .  elduc;  a  (pdiyyerai  <^aiv 
airavTa  {Horn.  xxix.  in  Ep.  ad  Cor.).  2  \  Qqj..  xiv.  32. 


ALLEGORY  65 

the  Law,  and  lie  identified  the  Law  with  the  Five  Books 
of  Moses.  Of  the  origin,  history,  and  composite  character 
of  those  books  he  knew  nothing.  Enough  indeed  of  tradi- 
tional knowledge  was  still  extant  to  have  told  him  that  the 
Pentateuch  could  never  have  been  '■  written '  by  Moses  in  its 
present  form.  He  could  hardly  have  been  unaware  that 
the  Samaritan  Pentateuch  differed  from  the  Hebrew,^  and 
the  Greek  translation  from  both.  The  Jewish  admission 
that  the  Five  Books  had  been  'edited'  or  even  'written' 
by  Ezra  must  have  been  known  to  him.  It  needed  no 
great  acumen  to  detect  the  traces  of  legislative  change,  the 
tessellation  of  differing  documents,  and  the  variations  of 
literary  style.  It  requu'ed  a  straining  even  of  Philo's 
theories  to  suppose  that  Moses  had  penned  the  record  of 
his  own  death.  But  if  he  chose  to  overlook  or  ignore  all 
other  phenomena,  he  found  enough  in  the  '  Books  of  Moses ' 
to  show  the  un suitability,  if  not  the  blasphemy,  of  asserting 
that  every  word  in  them  had  been  '  dictated  by  God.' 

Some  way  of  getting  over  this  difficulty  was  indispensa- 
ble if  his  theory  was  to  be  saved :  and  he  found  the  means 
ready  to  his  hand.  It  was  the  method  of  '  allegory,'  by 
which,  whenever  he  chose,  he  could  ignore  the  literal  story, 
or  the  actual  expressions,  and  arbitrarily  extort  from  them 
some  meaning  which  he  exalted  as  the  'spiritual'  or 
'-mystic '  sense,  but  with  which  the  actual  narratives  never 
had  the  remotest  connection.^    His  Platonism  is  anti- 

1  The  Jewish  scholar  Geiger  has  decidedly  proved  that  the  text  of 
the  Pentateuch  has  been  in  many  places  modified.  The  oldest  of  the 
writings  which  may  be  classed  as  '  Talmudic  '—the  Book  of  Jubilees 
—which  was  perhaps  collected  about  fifty  years  before  Christ,  in 
dealing  with  the  main  chronology  of  the  patriarchs,  and  in  other 
points,  agreed  with  the  Samaritan  rather  than  with  the  Hebrew  text 
of  the  Pentateuch  (Noldeke,  I.e.  p.  351). 

2  From  the  LXX  word  for  '  cakes '  {iyKpw^ia^,  Ex.  xii.  34)  is  deduced 

5 


66  THE  BIBLE 

Judaic— for  the  Rabbis  said,  '  Scripture  goes  not  beyond 
its  plain  meaning.'  The  Haggadic  formula,  'Read  not 
thus,  but  thus,'  was  applied  in  a  quite  different  way. 

This  method  was  equally  heathen  in  its  origin  with  the 
theory  which  it  was  adopted  to  support.  There  was  not 
in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  anywhere,  and  least  of  all  in  the 
Books  of  Moses,  the  faintest  trace  of  any  such  right  to 
'allegorise'  their  meaning.  But  the  Stoic  philosophers 
among  the  Greeks  had  been  confronted  with  much  the 
same  difficulty  as  that  which  perplexed  Philo  and  his  pre- 
decessors among  the  Alexandrian  Jews.  The  poems  of 
Homer  were  to  the  Greeks  a  sacred  book ;  yet  they  con- 
tained passages  about  the  gods  which  the  Stoics  felt  to  be 
unworthy  and  degrading,  though  they  had  inflicted  no 
shock  on  the  ruder  consciousness  of  earher  ages.  The 
Stoics  got  rid  of  these  difficulties  by  saying  that  Homer 
wrote  '  allegorically ; '  in  other  words,  that  he  said  one 
thing  when  he  meant  something  entirely  different.^  In 
this  way  they  had  read  all  sorts  of  fine  moral  meaning  into 
the  crude  glad  mythology,  and  the  simple  sensuous  pas- 

the  duty  of  esoteric  teaching !  He  calls  this  exiDlanation  a  great 
mystery,  De  Sacr.  Abel,  et  Caini  (ed.  Mangey,  i.  174).  This  fancy  is 
bon-owed  by  Clem.  Alex.  Strom,  v.  694,  and  St.  Ambrose,  De  Ahrah. 
i.  5.  For  more  details  see  my  Bampton  Lectures  {Rist.  of  Interpre- 
tation, pp.  22,  23,  127-158). 

^  The  word  '  allegory '  is  derived  from  alio  ayopeveiv,  '  to  say  some- 
thing else  than  what  is  really  said.'  Socrates,  when  asked  for  a  so- 
lution of  the  difficulty  about  an  ancient  Homeric  myth,  was  content 
to  say,  'The  wise  are  doubtful,'  and  that  he,  for  his  part,  had  no 
time  for  such  inquiries.  For  Philo's  \news  of  '  ecstatic  trance '  see 
Quis  rer.  div.  haT.  {0pp.  ed.  Mangey,  i.  508),  Quod  a  Deo  mittantur 
somnia  (id.  p.  689),  De  Mose  (id.  p.  124),  De  Sjyec.  legg.  (id.  p.  343). 
For  his  views  and  illustrations  of  allegory  see  De  Abrahamo  (^id.  p.  9 
sqq.),  De  Decern  Oraculis  (id.  p.  180),  and  De  Legum  AllegoriiSj  passim. 
— Orig.  c.  Cels.  iv.  48. 


A  DISASTROUS  LEGACY  67 

sionate  poetry,  of  an  early  age.  Heracleides  of  Pontus  had 
reduced  their  allegorical  methods  into  a  system,  in  a  book 
still  extant, '  On  the  Allegories  of  Homer.'  Philo  had  read 
this  book,  and  he  found  that  some  previous  Jewish  writers, 
now  for  the  most  part  forgotten,  had  utilised  the  hint  of 
the  Stoics  and  applied  it  to  the  difficulties  of  the  Law.  By 
the  use  of  this  potent  alchemy  the  facts  wliich  ought  to 
have  proved  to  Philo  the  impossibility  of  his  theories  of 
inspiration  evaporated  at  a  touch.  He  borrowed  a  heathen 
method  to  maintain  a  heathen  hypothesis,  and  thus  suc- 
ceeded in  blinding  himself  to  the  most  obvious  facts. 

Philo's  theory  and  his  method  were,  however,  adopted 
by  many  of  his  countrymen,  and  were  inherited  by  Chris- 
tian teachers  as  a  disastrous  legacy  from  the  Jewish 
Chui-ch.i  They  were  unfortunately  accepted  by  the  great 
and  many-sided  Christian  teacher  Origen  of  Alexandria, 
and  owing  to  the  spell  of  his  learning  and  genius  they 
exercised  an  immense  influence  for  many  centuries.^    But 

1  In  the  earliest  known  New  Testament  commentary,  that  of  the 
Gnostic  Heracleon  on  St.  John  (c.  a.d.  170),  'the  allegorical  method 
is  already  full  blown  '  (Sanday,  p.  39). 

2  Origen's  principles  of  exegesis  were,  however,  more  elaborate 
than  Philo's.  He  was  the  practical  inventor  of  the  '  threefold  sense.' 
In  confirmation  of  this  ho  referred  to  Prov.  xxii.  20,  'Have  I  not 
written  unto  thee  excellent  things?'  where  the  Septuagint  and  Vul- 
gate, following  a  very  doubtful  reading,  render  kuI  ah  Jt  cnrdyparpai 
avTo.  Tpiaau^  ( '  Ecce  descripsi  tibi  Iripliciter,'  Vulg. ).  Even  if  the  read- 
ing were  correct,  there  is  no  reference  whatever  to  any  system  of 
interpretation.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  parallel,  even  in  the 
misuse  of  Scripture,  for  a  more  amazingly  irrelevant  inference, 
founded  on  a  more  completely  misinterpreted  fragment  of  a  text ! 
See  Origen,  De  Principiis,  iv.  $  11 ;  see  too  C.  Cels.  iv.  43-51,  v.  47- 
60.  We  find  that  the  pagans  already  ridiculed  the  allegorising  of 
Scripture.  And  this  '  threefold  sense '  was  afterwards  made  fourfold, 
and  every  text  or  story  had  to  be  interpreted  '  literally,  allegorically, 


68  THE  BIBLE 

they  did  not  pass  without  challenge.  One  leading  Father 
wi'ote  a  book  against  the  notion  that  the  Prophets  only 
spoke  in  a  trance,  and  the  theories  of  verbal  dictation  and 
allegorical  meaning  were  rejected  by  the  soundest  and 
most  learned  Christian  exegetes,  the  representatives  of  the 
great  School  of  Antioch.  As  late  as  the  ninth  century  a 
Church  writer  (840)  decidedly  rejected,  and  even  ridiculed, 
the  notion  that  the  words  used  by  the  sacred  writers  were 
the  veritable  vocables  of  God. 

Let  us  show  the  narcotic  spell  exercised  by  this  baseless 
hypothesis,  and  by  the  fatal  facility  of  imaginary  interpre- 
tations to  which  it  inevitably  led. 

In  a  Jewish  book  called  the  '  Lekach  Tobh '  we  are  told 
that  aU  the  Law  is  of  equal  value  from  '  I  am  thy  Lord ' 
(Ex.  XX.  2)  to  '  Timna  was  the  concubine  of  Eliphaz '  (Gen. 
xxxvi.  12) ;  and  that  Moses  wrote  down  completely  from 
the  mouth  of  Jehovah  the  whole  Law,  from  '  In  the  begin- 
ning' (Gen.  i.  1)  to  'all  Israel'  (Deut.  xxxiv.  12). 

Rabbi  Aqiba  said  that  there  was  a  mystic  meaning  in 
every  letter,  tittle,  and  flourish  of  every  letter  in  Scripture, 
just  as  in  every  fibre  of  an  ant's  foot  or  a  gnat's  wing ;  and 
R.  Eliezer  says  that  he  taught  300  laws  based  on  the  text 
'  A  witch  shall  not  live.'  ^ 

Quenstedt,  whom  we  choose  as  a  type  of  the  post-Refor- 
mation dogmatists,  says,  '  Scripture  is  the  infallible  foun- 
tain of  truth,  and  is  free  from  all  error ;  everything  and 

tropologically,  and  anagogieally '  according  to  the  old  medissval 
jingle— 

Littera  gesta  doeet ;  quid  credas  Allegoria ; 

Moralis  quid  agas ;  quo  tendas  Anagogia. 

For  full  details  on  this  whole  subject  see  my  Mist,  of  Interpretation, 
Bampton  Lectures,  pp.  276-300. 

1  Compare  Sankedrin,  p.  68,  1 ;  Hershon,  Talm.  Miscellany,  p.  261. 


UNTENABLE  ALLEGORY  69 

each  thing  in  it,  whether  dogmatic  or  moral  or  historic, 
&c.,  is  most  true.' 

The  celebrated  Puritan  divine  John  Owen  held  that '  the 
Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  were  immedi- 
ately and  eutii'ely  given  out  by  God  Himself,  His  mind 
being  in  them  represented  unto  us  without  the  least  inter- 
vening of  such  mediums  and  ways  as  were  capable  of  giv- 
ing change  or  alteration  to  the  least  iota  or  syllable.'^ 
And  again,  'Nor  is  it  enough  to  satisfy  us  that  the  doc- 
trines mentioned  are  preserved  entire ;  every  little  iota  of 
the  Word  of  God  must  come  under  our  consideration  as 
being  one  book  from  God.'  - 

The  late  Dean  Burgon,  not  content  with  asserting  the 
supernaturalness  of  every  book,  every  chapter,  every  verse, 
and  every  word  of  the  Bible,  declared— with  nonsensical 
rhetoric— that '  even  every  letter '  of  the  Bible  was  divinely 
inspired. 

Such  views  we  reject.  They  are  disproved  by  history, 
philosophy,  and  criticism ;  they  are  burdensome  to  the 
reason  and  repugnant  to  the  conscience. 

The  teachers  who  held  these  views  were  compelled  to 
deal,  on  the  most  absurd  principles,  with  passages  which 
on  the  face  of  them  were  morally  imperfect ;  with  stories 
which  Pascal  describes  as  unbecoming;  with  apparent 
discrepancies ;  with  distinct  contradictions ;  with  duplicate 
and  varjdng  narratives ;  with  untenable  chronologies ;  with 
details  which  sometimes  seemed  to  be  erroneous,  trivial,  or 
unjust.  To  get  rid  of  phenomena  which  disproved  their 
theory  they  had  to  invent  the  assertion  that  all  such  things 
were  allegories,  or  to  maintain  that  principles  irrecon- 
cUably  opposed  to  each  other  were  equally  expressive  of 
the  Will  of  God. 

1  TIic  Divine  Original  ^c.  of  Scripture,  2  Works,  xvi.  303. 


70  THE   BIBLE 

Thus  Philo,  whenever  he  finds  anything  in  the  letter  of 
the  Law  which  he  admits  to  be  'abject,  untrue,  contra- 
dictoiy,  or  derogatory  to  God,'  still  maintains  his  mechani- 
cal theory  by  inventing  a  set  of  rules  half  Rabbinic  and 
half  Stoic.  Nothing  was  easier  for  him  than  complete 
misrepresentation  of  all  that  the  Books  of  Moses  mean, 
when  he  started  with  the  assumption  that  'the  whole  or 
the  gi*eatest  part  of  the  legislation  is  allegorical.'  Such 
an  opinion  led  him  to  strange  lengths  of  freedom.  'It 
would,'  he  said, '  be  a  sign  of  great  simplicity  to  think  that 
the  world  was  created  in  six  days,  or  at  all  in  time  ! '  'To 
take  literally  the  words  "  Grod  planted  a  garden  in  Eden  " 
is  impiety.  Let  no  such  fabulous  nonsense  ever  enter  our 
minds.'  Yet  so  vague  and  varying  is  the  view  of  Philo, 
that,  though  he  uses  these  strong  expressions  about  the 
letter  of  Scripture,  he  tells  a  story  of  the  condign  vengeance 
of  God  upon  an  offender  who  scoffed  at  a  minute  Scriptural 
allusion.^ 

Similarly  Origen,  insisting— like  so  many  of  the  Fathers 
and  Christian  interpreters  down  to  recent  times— upon  a 
complete  misinterpretation  of  the  verse  '  The  letter  killeth, 
but  the  spii'it  giveth  life,'  elaborated  his  system  of  the 
threefold  sense  of  aU  Scriptiu*e,  which  reduced  its  exposi- 
tion to  a  sort  of  divination.  This  text  furnishes  us  with 
another  salient  instance  of  the  mischief  which  results  from 
the  old  atomistic  method,  which,  in  defiance  of  Scripture 
itself,  treated  Scripture  as  a  congeries  of  separate  super- 
natural utterances  homogeneously  inspired  and  spiritually 
equipollent.  And  since  this  text  has  been  so  enormously 
misapplied,  we  may  weU  pause  to  ask,  The  letter  killeth— 

^  De  Mutat.  Norn.  8.  The  scoffer  was  jesting  at  the  change  of  names, 
Abraham  and  Sarah :  but  ttjq  ^pevo^TiajSeiag  .  .  .  eduKe  ttjv  dpfio^ovaav 
diiajv  .  .  .  kir"  ayx^^vrtv  ^fev. 


ORIGEN  71 

what  f  The  letter  killeth— «'7io>/i  f  Is  all  literal  interpre- 
tation, then,  murderous  ?  If  so,  why  is  it  ever  permissible, 
and  when  ?  And  if,  in  the  sense  of  the  Fathers  and  School- 
men, the  letter  kUls,  why  was  it  not  made  as  vivifying  as 
the  Spirit  ?  The  real  meaning  of  the  text  is  wholly  differ- 
ent. It  means  that  the  letter  of  the  Mosaic  law  threatened 
death  to  those  who  disoheyed  it,  while  the  Spirit  of  the  Gos- 
pel offers  life  to  all  who  accept  it.  The  phrase  made  not 
the  faintest  reference  to  the  literal  or  the  so-called  '  spir- 
itual '  meaning  of  Scripture,  though,  isolated  from  its  con- 
text and  its  true  significance,  it  was  used  for  seventeen 
hundred  years  as  the  chief  *  proof '  of  the  duty  and  neces- 
sity of  allegorising  Scripture  !  What  connection  is  there 
between  the  laws  of  exegesis  and  the  statement  that  the 
written  enactment  of  Moses  punishes  disobedience  with 
death  ?  ^  The  *  letter '  which  thus  killed  was  nevertheless 
meant  to  be  quite  literally  understood.  But  Origen's  re- 
marks show  how  little  he  apprehends  the  true  significance 
of  Scripture.  How,  he  asks,  could  hearers  possibly  be 
edified  by  the  trivialities  of  Leviticus  or  Numbers  ?  How 
could  God  have  given  minute  regulations  about  fat  and 
leaven  ?  -How  could  He  have  said  that  Abraham  betrayed 
the  chastity  of  liis  wife?  How  could  He  have  justified 
bloody  wars  or  fierce  imprecations?  The  Scripture  (he 
thinks)  enweaves  into  its  narrative  some  things  which  have 
never  happened,  and  which  in  part  could  not  have  hap- 
pened. In  all  these  things  we  must  seek  a  meaning  worthy 
of  the  mind  of  God.  How  can  it  possibly  advantage  any 
one  to  read  about  the  drunkenness  of  Noah  ?  2  or  about 

1  See  Kom.  viii.  8-13. 

2  Strange  that  Origen,  misled  by  the  spirit  of  system,  should  have 
failed  to  see  the  profound  moral  significance  of  the  story  of  Noah's 
degrading  fall ! 


72  THE  BIBLE 

Jacob  and  his  wives  and  concubines  ?  or  about  the  horrid 
incest  of  Lot?  or  about  the  foul  story  of  Judah  and 
Tamar?  All  these  things,  he  says,  are  not  facts  but 
'mystic  economies.'^  He  denied  their  literal  truth,  or 
ignored  it  as  something  unimportant.  '  Where  the  subject 
matter  involves  either  turpitude  or  impossibility/  says  St. 
Jerome,  '  we  are  passed  over  to  higher  things ; '  and  '  the 
paltriness  of  the  letter  sends  us  back  to  the  preciousness 
of  the  spiritual  sense.'  - 

Let  us  take  the  Venerable  Bede  as  another  instance  of 
the  results  which  spring  from  an  exaggerated  theory  of 
Inspiration  necessitating  a  sham  principle  of  exegesis. 
'  What  is  it,'  he  asks, '  to  us  monks  to  be  told  that  Elkanah 
had  two  wives  ?  If  we  only  draw  such  "  old  things  "  as  the 
literal  sense  out  of  Scripture,  we  get  no  spiritual  doctrine ; 
but  when  we  understand  it  allegorically,  Elkanah  is  our 
Lord  and  his  two  wives  are  the  synagogue  and  the 
Church' !  So  far  as  this  is  offered  as  an  interpretation  of 
the  meaning  of  the  Book  of  Samuel,  we  can  only  say  that 
it  is  pure  nonsense.  It  makes  Scripture  '  profitable '  by 
attributing  to  it  a  sense  with  which  its  words  have  nothing 
to  do.  It  reduces  large  sections  of  the  Bible  to  a  mere 
abracadabra  to  be  manipulated  by  the  inventiveness  or  the 
self-interest  of  ignorant  interpreters. 

So  Sixtus  Senensis,  the  author  of  the  once  celebrated 
'  Bibliotheca  Sancta,'  asks,  '  What  does  it  help  us  to  know 
the  wars  and  seditions  of  the  ancient  Jews  ? '  and  he  makes 
this  a  potent  argument  for  the  allegoric  system.  The 
question  shows  how  radical  was  that  misconception  of 

1  See  Origen,  De  Principiis,  iv.  $$  9-27;  c.  Cels.  iv.  48;  where 
abundant  illustrations  will  be  found.  Comp.  Aug.  De  doctr.  Christ. 
iii.  10. 

2  See  his  Commentary  on  Hosea. 


SPECIMENS  73 

the  historic  significance  of  Scripture  which  had  become 
stereotyped  for  nearly  a  thousand  years.  Under  such 
methods  the  exquisite  human  interest  of  Scripture  is 
evaporated  at  a  touch,  leaving  a  thin  residuum  of  hollow 
unreality.  A  specimen  or  two  more,  out  of  the  myriads 
which  encumber  whole  volumes  of  Fathers,  Schoolmen, 
and  Commentators,  may  suffice  to  show  the  reader  the 
extravagances  which  result  from  an  indiscriminate  and 
unauthorised  extension  of  the  allegorical  method  to  pas- 
sages of  which  the  real  meaning  is  simple  and  obvious. 

Philo's  own  method  of  dealing  with  Scripture,  from 
which  all  these  streams  of  impossible  exegesis  derived 
their  ultimate  origin,  may  be  judged  of  from  the  following 
instances : 

i.  '  God  did  not  rain  upon  the  earth.'  This  implies  that 
God  did  not  shed  the  perceptions  of  things  upon  the 
senses !  ^ 

ii.  Er  means  leather,  i.e.  the  leathern  mass  which  covers 
us,  i.e.  the  body.-  Hence  the  slaying  of  Er  means  that 
goodness  condemns  the  body  to  death ! 

iii.  '  With  my  staff  I  passed  over  this  Jordan.' 

PhUo  is  by  no  means  content  to  understand  the  verse 
literally,  Jordan  means  '  baseness ;'  the  staff  means  '  tem- 
perance ;'  and  Jacob  intends  to  say  that  by  discipline  he 
has  risen  above  baseness.^ 

iv.  Now  let  us  pass  over  two  centuries  and  hear  one  of 
Origen's  allegorical  explanations  of  the  New  Testament. 
One  will  more  than  suffice.  He  is  explaining  (?)  the  re- 
mark of  John  the  Baptist,  '  whose  shoe's  latchet  I  am  not 
worthy  to  unloose,'  an  allusion  which  requires  no  more  ex- 

i  De  Mund.  Opif.  (0pp.  i.  30) ;  De  Legg.  Allegg.  {id.  pp.  47,  68). 

a  De  Post.  Cain.  (Opp.  ed.  Mangey,  i.  260). 

»  De  Profugis  {Opp.  ed.  Mangey,  i.  568) ;  De  Norn.  Mut.  {id.  p.  598). 


74  THE  BIBLE 

planation  to  the  simplest  reader  than  the  ordinary  phrase 
'  I  am  not  fit  to  untie  his  shoe.'  But  an  explanation  so 
transparently  obvious  does  not  satisfy  Origen.  *  I  think/ 
lie  says, '  that  one  of  the  shoes  is  the  Incarnation,  when  the 
Son  of  God  assumes  flesh  and  blood,  and  the  descent  into 
Hades,  whatever  Hades  may  be.'  ^ 

V.  Now  pass  over  fifteen  centuries  and  come  to  Sweden- 
borg.  ' "  And  Rebecca  arose  "—hereby  is  signified  an  eleva- 
tion of  the  affection  of  truth—"  and  her  damsels"— hereby 
are  signified  subservient  affections  — ''aw(Z  they  rode  upon 
camels" — hereby  is  signified  the  intellectual  principle  ele- 
vated above  natural  scientifics.'  ^ 

Philo  and  Origen  and  Swedenborg  were  great  and  good 
men,  worthy  of  aU.  our  reverence.  Nevertheless,  the  com- 
mon sense  of  all  except  the  blindest  leaders  of  the  bhnd 
has  long  ago  flung  such  lines  of  interpretation  to  the  moles 
and  to  the  bats.  A  modern  commentator  who  ventured 
to  offer  such  exegesis  would  make  himself  the  laughing- 
stock of  Christendom;  and  yet  the  manner  in  which 
some  modern  commentators  deal  with  Scripture  needs  a 
rejection  hardly  less  decisive.  Let  us,  by  way  of  example, 
turn  to  Bishop  Wordsworth's  remarks  on  the  murder  of 
Sisera  by  Jael.  Taking  the  narrative  as  it  stands,  we  see 
that  the  Bedouin  chieftainess,  whose  tribe  was  at  peace 
with  Jabin,  King  of  Canaan,  seizing  the  opportunity  of  the 
defeat  of  his  general,  Sisera,  and  feeling  no  touch  of  pity 
for  him  in  his  hour  of  misfortune,  treacherously  enticed 
him  into  her  own  woman's-tent,  offered  him  the  sacred 
pledges  of  protection  and  hospitality  {daliheel),  and  pro- 
mised, at  his  request,  to  lie  to  his  pursuers.   Next  she  luUed 

1  Origen,  Rom.  in  Joann.  vi.  H  18,  23.     (Delarue,  iv.  134,  139.) 

2  Swedenborg's  Arcana  Ccelestia  (quoted  by  Rev.  R.  Heber  Newton, 
The  Rightmid  Wrong  Uses  of  the  Bible,  p.  113). 


JAEL  AND   SISERA  75 

him  to  sleep,  and,  while  he  lay  under  her  protection  in 
weary  slumber,  brutally  dashed  out  his  brains  with  the 
tent-peg.  She  then  exultantly  proclaimed  her  treacherous 
and  bloody  deed.  It  would  be  absurd  to  judge  this  igno- 
rant daughter  of  a  savage  epoch  by  any  modern  or  Cliris- 
tian  standard.  She  may  have  been  impelled  by  bUnd 
instincts  of  patriotism  which  seemed  to  her  to  transcend 
all  the  sanctions  which  otherwise  her  race  regarded  as 
the  most  divine.  But  to  laud  her  murderous  deed  as 
exemplary;  to  invent  a  Divine  suggestion  as  having 
inspired  her  ferocity ;  to  invest  it  with  a  miraculous  char- 
acter by  the  strained  interpretation  of  a  word ;  and,  finally, 
to  compare  this  wild  murderess  to  the  Virgin  Mary— as  is 
done  by  the  Bishop— is  to  adopt  a  method  which  has  often 
been  abused  by  casuistry  into  opinions  which  are  ultimately 
fatal  not  only  to  the  claims  of  Scriptui-e  but  to  all  honesty 
and  all  morahty,  and  which  have  been  a  curse  to  the 
human  race.  The  deed  of  Jael  is  but  an  illustration  of 
the  truth  that '  the  times  of  this  ignorance  God  winked  at ' 
(R.V.  '  overlooked '),  '  but  now  commandeth  all  men  every- 
where to  repent.'  ^  The  story  can  only  profit  us  by  kin- 
dling a  spirit  of  gratitude  that,  in  past  days,  darkness 
covered  the  earth,  but  the  true  hght  has  now  shined.  It 
is  right  to  say  tliat  Jael  must  only  be  judged  according  to 
her  lights,  and  that  no  one  thinks  of  condemning  her  as 
though  she  had  the  remotest  conception  of  the  moralit}^  of 
the  Gospel.  But  it  is  false  to  pretend  that  her  deed  was 
anything  but  an  act  of  wild  and  deceitful  revenge.  The 
praise  of  Deborah,  even  if  it  be  rightly  interpreted  into  a 
moral  commendation,  is  infinitely  less  authoritative  than 
the  eternal  voice  of  conscience  and  of  the  moral  law. 
Plato  taught  us  many  centm-ies  ago  that  the  inevitable 
1  Acts  rvii.  30. 


76  THE  BIBLE 

difficulties  of  ancient  religious  literatui-e  should  in  no 
way  be  suffered  to  interfere  with  moral  growth.  In  his 
'  Phasdrus '  we  find  this  striking  passage : 

'  I  beseech  you  to  tell  me,  Socrates/  said  Phaedrus,  '  do 
you  believe  this  tale  ? ' 

'The  wise  are  doubtful/  answered  Socrates,  'and  I 
should  not  be  singular  if,  like  them,  I  also  doubted.  I 
might  have  a  rational  explanation.  There  is  a  discrepancy, 
however,  about  the  locality.  Now  I  quite  acknowledge 
that  these  allegories  are  very  nice,  but  he  is  not  to  be  en- 
vied who  has  to  invent  them,  and  when  he  has  once  begun 
he  must  go  on  and  rehabilitate  centaurs  and  chimaeras 
dire  .  .  .  and  numberless  other  inconceivable  and  porten- 
tous monsters.  ...  I  say  farewell  to  all  this.'  ^ 

If  any  choose  to  maintain  the  equable  and  plenary  in- 
spu'ation  of  the  Bible  in  all  its  parts  they  must  defend 
their  idol  by  such  means  as  their  conscience  permits 
against  the  assaults  of  atheists  and  the  perplexities  of 
Christians.  But  no  one  is  bound  by  the  Christian  verity 
or  the  Catholic  religion  to  adopt  any  such  theory.  Any 
Christian  may  repudiate  alike  the  theory  and  the  scheme 
of  impossible  misinterpretation  invented  to  disguise  its 
most  flagrant  difficulties.  Whatever  explanation  may  be 
offered  of  the  perplexities  presented  by  some  parts  of 
Scripture,  the  fallacious  extension  of  allegory  must  be  re- 
jected as  a  mere  subterfuge.^ 

1  See  Jowett's  Translation  of  the  Dialogues,  ii.  106. 

2  In  spite  of  Cardinal  Newman's  most  rash  and  untenable  assertion 
that  'the  mystical  interpretation  and  orthodoxy  will  stand  or  fall 
together'  {Ess.  on  Development,  p.  344),  it  was  rejected  by  the 
School  of  Antioch  (by  far  the  greatest  exegetes  among  the  Fathers) 
and  first  adopted  by  the  Gnostics.  Its  excesses  are  strongly  con- 
demned by  Eustathius,  Basil,  Epiphanius,  Augustine,  Chrysostom, 
and  even  by  Ireneeus  (i.  1.  5),  and  Tertullian  (c.  Marc.  iv.  19 :  Sem- 


MORALITY  ABOVE  THEORIES  77 

per  heeretici  .  .  .  nudas  et  simplices  voces  conjecturis  quo  volunt 
rapiunt).  Mr.  Chase,  who  quotes  these  and  other  passages  (Chrys- 
ostoni  as  an  Interpreter,  p.  60),  also  quotes  the  condemnation  of  'this 
deluding  art,  ,  .  .  which  maketh  of  anything  what  it  listeth,'  by 
Hooker  {Ecd.  Pol.  V.  lix.  2) ;  and  by  Fuller  ( Pis^/a/i  Sight,  iii.  2,  $  7), 
'Is  not  this  rather  lusus  than  illusiof  Such  grainless  husks,  when 
threshed  out,  vanish  all  into  chaff.' 


CHAPTER  Y 

THE  BIBLE  IS  NOT  HOMOGENEOUS  IN  ITS  MORALITY. 

'Those  points  that  are  necessary  God  hath  made  plain;  those 
that  are  not  plain,  not  necessary.'— Bp.  Andrewes,  Sermon  III.  on 
the  Nativity, 

*  And  here  I  must  tell  you  a  great  and  needful  truth,  which  ignorant 
Christians,  fearing  to  confess,  by  overdoing,  tempt  men  to  infidelity. 
The  Scripture  is  like  a  man's  body,  where  some  parts  are  but  for  the 
preservation  of  the  rest,  and  may  be  maimed  without  death ;  the  sense 
is  the  soul  of  Scripture,  the  latter  but  the  body  or  vehicle.'— Baxter, 
Catechising  of  Families,  ch.  vi. 

Since  Christ  Himself  taught  us  that  the  morality  of  the 
Gospel  is  infinitely  in  advance  of  the  morality  of  the  Law,^ 
ought  we  not  to  apply  the  principle  which  He  laid  down  ? 
i.  There  are  certain  Psalms  known  as  the  Imprecatory 
Psalms,  which  are  partly  explained  away  in  a  non-natural 
sense,  and  partly  defended  by  elaborate  systems  of  casuis- 
try. But  will  any  one  pretend  that  the  same  spirit  is 
breathed  by  the  sweet  childlike  trustfulness  of  the  23rd 
and  91st  Psalms,  and  the  sweeping  curses  of  the  59th  and 
109th  ?  In  the  blessing  pronounced  on  those  who  should 
take  the  little  children  of  the  Babylonians  and  dash  them 
against  the  stones,  are  we  to  see  a  supernaturally  dictated 
sentiment  of  Di\dne  morality,  or  are  we  to  detect  a  fierce 

1  Matt.  v.  43,  44,  xix.  8,  &c. 
78 


IMPRECATORY  PSALMS  79 

utterance  of  Jewish  hatred  which  directly  contradicts  the 
noble  exhortation  of  Jeremiah  ?  ^  Could  it  ever  have  been 
right  for  any  men,  under  any  circumstances,  to  pray  a 
prayer  so  utterly  antichristian  in  spirit  as  '  let  the  iniquity 
of  his  father  be  had  in  remembrance,  and  let  not  the  sin 
of  his  mother  be  done  away '  ?  or  '  let  there  be  none  to  pity 
liim,  or  to  have  compassion  on  his  fatherless  childi'en'? 
In  the  bitterest  of  these  Psalms  (cix.)  an  attempt  has  been 
made  to  represent  these  awful  curses  as  being  the  curses 
of  Da\dd's  enemies,  against  which  he  prays.  But  of  what 
avail  is  this  palliation  for  Psalms  xxxv.  Ixix.  cxl.  and 
others  ?  Can  the  casuistry  be  anything  but  gross  which 
would  palm  off  such  passages  as  the  very  utterance  of 
God?  In  such  a  passage  as  Psalm  Ixviii.  22,  23,  are  we  to 
suppose  that  the  Lord  actually  said  to  the  Israelites  that 
He  would  bring  them  again  from  Bashan  '  that  theii*  feet 
might  be  dipped  in  the  blood  of  their  enemies,  and  the 
tongue  of  theii*  dogs  be  red  through  the  same '  ?  Is  there 
no  difference  between  the  spirit  of  this  clause  and  that  of 
Psalm  Ixvii.  1,  2,  '  God  be  merciful  unto  us  and  bless 
us  .  .  .  that  Thy  way  may  be  known  upon  earth.  Thy  sav- 
ing health  among  all  nations'?  One  thing  is  certain; 
without '  divine  imbreathings  and  aspirations '  in  our  own 
hearts  we  shall  never  understand  the  true  spirit  of  the 
Scriptures.  We  may  make  of  them  a  mass  of  propositions ; 
we  may  torture  out  of  them  a  dialectic  system ;  we  may 
petrify  them  into  a  heap  of  missiles  to  hurl  at  our  oppo- 
nents; but  to  the  proud,  bitter,  and  narrow  soul  they 
cease  to  be  a  field  of  manna  strewn  with  the  bread  of  life. 
*  The  popular  religion  of  the  day,'  it  has  been  said,  '  is 
still  full  of  crude  and  unassimilated  errors  which  nominally 
survive,  although  in  practice  they  have  been  rendered 
1  Jer.  xxbc.  7. 


80  THE  BIBLE 

comparatively  innocuous  by  the  selective  instinct  of  com- 
mon sense.  A  pseudo-reverence  is  often  the  worst  stum- 
bling-block in  the  path  of  religious  progress,  and,  among 
men's  religious  conceptions,  childish  prepossessions,  obso- 
lete ethics,  vulgar  superstitions,  and  scientific  absurdities 
often  seem  to  have  an  equal  and  sacred  right  of  citizenship. 
Absolutely  inconsistent  and  mutually  destructive  beliefs 
lie  side  by  side  in  men's  creeds  like  the  lion  and  the  lamb 
of  Isaiah's  prophecy.'  And  the  cm-ious  thing  is  that  the 
maintenance  of  worthless  sui'vivals  is  often  made  an  excuse 
for  spiritual  conceit  and  savage  anathemas.  There  are 
many  with  whom  'the  childish  following  of  Scripture  is 
apt  to  stand  in  a  huge  delight  in  their  favoiu'ite  scraps  of 
the  sacred  text,  and  their  favourite  blunders  of  interpre- 
tation.' But  religion  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  main- 
tenance of  such  opinions ;  it  must  be  based  on  that  love 
of  truth,  and  that  faith  in  the  God  of  Truth,  which  refuses 
to  be  tied  down  to  views  which  the  voice  of  God  in  History, 
Science,  Reason,  and  Conscience,  has  convicted  of  falsity 
or  error. 

ii.  We  are  told  of  the  Ten  Commandments  that  God 
spake  them ;  and  according  to  Deut.  v.  22  '  He  added  no 
more.'  We  regard  Moses  as  a  great  lawgiver  and  a  great 
prophet ;  but  are  we  to  defend  the  divinity  of  passages  so 
morally  indefensible  as  that  which  du-ects  that  a  man  is 
not  to  be  punished  for  smiting  his  slave,  male  or  female, 
if  only  the  slave  survives  for  a  day  or  two— 'for  he  is  his 
money '  ?  ^  or  can  we,  as  honest  men,  possibly  suppose  that 
such  a  passage  as  Deut.  xxi.  10-14  was  dictated  by  God  f 
or,  again,  such  a  verse  as  Deut.  xiv.  21,  '  Ye  shall  not  eat 
of  anything  that  dieth  of  itself :  thou  shalt  give  it  unto  the 
stranger  that  is  in  thy  gates,  that  he  may  eat  it  j  or  thou 
1  Ex.  xxi.  21,  22. 


WARS   OF   EXTERMINATION  81 

may  est  sell  it  unto  an  alien.'  We  may  admit  that  slavery 
was  for  a  time  a  tolerated  cui'se ;  but  is  it  a  special  proof 
of  piety  to  regard  it,  on  the  authority  of  Exodus,  as  a 
sacred  institution  f  May  it  not  be  profitable  to  remind 
ourselves  of  the  Indian  proverb,  '  The  holy  fire  is  beaten 
with  hammers  if  it  allies  itself  with  ii'on ' '? 

iii.  In  Num.  xxxi.  1-18  it  is  said  that  Moses,  in  God's 
name,  bade  the  Israelites  to  exterminate  the  people  of 
Midian.  In  obedience  to  this  command  they  '  slew  all  the 
males,'  but  after  burning  up  the  cities  and  appropriating 
the  cattle,  they  took  captive  '  all  the  women  of  Midian  and 
their  little  ones.'  Thereupon  Moses  is  angiy  with  them, 
and  indignantly  asks  them,  *  Have  ye  saved  all  the  women 
alive  ? '  and  then,  on  the  ground  that  heathen  women  had 
tempted  Israel  to  sin,  he  says  'Now  therefore  kill  every 
male  among  the  little  ones,  and  kill  every  woman  that  hath 
known  man.  But  all  the  women  childi-en  that  have  not 
known  a  man  .  .  .  keep  alive  for  yourselves.'  This  is 
done;  and,  next,  Moses  is  represented  as  bidding  those 
who  in  cold  blood  carried  out  this  ghastly  massacre  of 
women  and  innocent  childi-en  to  go  through  certain  cere- 
monial purifications !  And  the  Israelites  saved  \f()r  them- 
selves '  32,000  virgins  (xxxi.  35).  If  the  voice  of  History 
sternly  condemns  the  Athenians  for  their  conduct  to  Scione, 
Torone,  and  Melos,  are  we  not  to  condemn  the  Jews  for 
theii"  conduct  towards  the  kindred  people  of  Midian  ?  Was 
that  laudable  in  the  Jew  which  we  denounce  as  execrable 
in  the  Athenian  ?  Can  we  reallj'  regard  as  exemplary  the 
worse  than  '  Armenian  atrocities,'  the  worse  than  Sicilian 
Vespers,  which  they  inflicted  on  their  enemies  when  they 
massacred  75,000  of  them,  as  narrated  in  the  Book  of 
Esther?  Even  if  this  be  not  history  l)ut  Haggadah,  can 
we  approve  the  narration  of  it  with  evident  satisfaction  ? 
6 


82  THE  BIBLE 

'  It  is,'  says  Professor  Sanday,  '  out  of  the  question  to  say 
that  the  Book  of  Esther  is  wholly  filled  with  the  Spirit  of 
God,  and  the  Book  of  Wisdom  whoUy  devoid  of  it.' 

Fall  back,  if  you  can,  on  the  miserable  pleas  which  have 
sometimes  been  ui'ged  in  f  avoui'  of  the  righteousness  of  the 
wars  of  extermination ;  but  if  a  single  word  be  said  in  their 
palliation,  can  it  also  excuse  the  cold-blooded  butchery  of 
captive  women  and  innocent  little  ones,  and  the  retention 
of  others  to  be  slaves  and  concubines  ?  ^  To  the  Israehtes, 
it  may  be  that  such  things  did  not  seem  guilty  and  horri- 
ble. If  the  record  be  literal  history  the  Israelites  may 
have  believed,  in  their  moral  ignorance,  that  by  such  deeds 
they  were  pleasing  God  and  obeying  His  commands.  If 
such  horrors  could  be  recorded  without  blame— perhaps 
centuries  after  the  date  at  which  they  were  supposed  to 
have  happened— it  is  too  easy  to  see  that  they  might  have 
been  perpetrated  without  consciousness  of  guilt.  If  so, 
what  does  this  prove  except  that  the  moral  \dews  of  the 
desert  tribes  on  such  subjects  were  in  this  respect  very 
rudimentary  ? 

It  is  needless  to  multiply  illustrations.  The  defence  of 
religious  truth  is  in  no  wise  concerned  with  such  passages 
as  these.  "We  condemn  them  as  energetically  as  any  by 
whom  they  have  been  held  up  to  execration.  They  are  in 
the  Bible,  and  the  Bible  contains  all  things  necessary  to 
salvation ;  and  the  final  teaching  of  the  Bible  represents 
the  loftiest  summits  which  have  been  reached  by  the  wings 
of  the  purest  moral  aspiration.  But  neither  these  passages, 
nor  any  like  them,  represent  to  us  the  true  nature  and 
significance  of  the  Bible.  We  read  them  as  history  only. 
Their  instructiveness  depends  on  the  warnings  and  the  con- 

1  This  subject  will  he  touched  upon  more  fully  in  eh.  xiv.  As  to 
the  demonstrated  impossibility  of  the  numbers,  I  say  nothing. 


HUMAN    SACRIFICES  83 

trasts  whicli  they  involve.  In  that  sense,  and  that  alone, 
they  are  profoundly  instructive.  They  prove  how  slow,  in 
many  particulars,  was  the  development  of  the  rehgious 
consciousness  of  mankind.  Even  in  Jeremiah  (xlviii.  10), 
in  a  denunciation  of  Moab,  we  read  *  Cui'sed  be  he  that 
keepeth  back  his  sword  from  blood.' 

iv.  The  same  remarks  apply  to  some  details  in  the  nar- 
ratives of  Abraham,  of  Jacob,  of  Jephthah,  of  David,  of 
many  more.  The  use  made  of  them  in  the  sceptical 
propaganda  is  often  illegitimate.  The  Jewish  records 
never  intended  to  represent  the  patriarchs  and  kings  as 
faultless.  The  deceitfulness  of  Abraham,  of  Isaac,  of 
Jacob,  is  narrated,  but  their  general  faithfulness  is  rightly 
held  up  to  admiration  as  our  example.  That  they  were 
faultless  was  never  maintained  even  by  the  Rabbis,  till 
Rabbinic  exegesis  had  sunk  to  its  lowest  dregs  of  folly  and 
falsehood.^  Many  things  are  narrated  in  the  Bible  without 
blame,  as  they  are  in  the  poems  of  Homer  and  other 
ancient  writings,  to  which  there  was  nevertheless  no  inten- 
tion of  giving  any  colour  of  approval.  Supposing  it  to  be 
admitted  that  Abraham,  in  the  infancy  of  religious  know- 
ledge, believed  that  he  was  bidden  by  God  to  offer  a  human 
sacrifice :  we  learn  from  the  sequel  of  the  story  it  was  the 
will  of  God  to  prove  once  for  aU  that  such  sacrifices  are  to 
be  for  ever  condemned. 

v.  We  see  from  Scripture  itself  that  the  impulse  to  the 
same  act  may,  from  different  points  of  view,  be  attributed 
indifferently  to  God  and  to  Satan.  Thus  in  the  Book  of 
Samuel  (2  Sam.  xxiv.  1)  we  are  told  that  '  God  tempted 
Daind'  to  number  the  people.     In  the  Chronicles  (1  Chr. 

1  'Whoever  says  that  Reuben,  the  sons  of  Samuel,  David,  and 
Solomon  sinned,  as  appears  at  first  sight  in  Scripture,  is  decidedly 
in  error.'     Saiihcdrin,  ff.  55.  5  (Hershon,  Genesis,  p.  177). 


84  THE   BIBLE 

xxi.  1)  we  are  told  that  Satan  tempted  him.  To  a  Jew 
there  would  not  seem  to  be  any  violent  contradiction  in 
such  language,  because  the  Jews  referred  everything  to 
the  permission  and  will  of  God  to  such  an  extent  that  the 
Prophet  Isaiah  does  not  hesitate  to  use  such  language  as 
'  I  make  peace  and  create  evil.^  ^  Nevertheless,  such  j)hrases 
must  not  lead  us  to  forget  the  truth  so  plainly  set  forth  by 
St.  James.  '  Let  no  man  say  when  he  is  tempted,  "  I  am 
tempted  of  God,"  for  God  cannot  be  tempted  with  evil, 
neither  tempteth  He  any  man.'  From  Lev.  xxvii.  28,  29 
we  see  'that  human  sacrifices  offered  to  Jehovah  were 
possible  to  the  Hebrews  after  the  time  of  Moses  without 
meeting  check  or  censure  from  the  teachers  or  leaders  of 
the  nation.' 2  What  does  this' prove  except  that  the  con- 
ceptions of  the  nation  of  serfs  who  escaped  out  of  Egypt, 
and  of  their  descendants,  continued  to  be  lower  in  that 
particular  than  we  could  have  imagined  possible  ? 

vi.  Supposing,  again,  that  Jephthah  reaUy  bm-nt  his 
daughter  in  accordance  with  his  vow,  what  bearing  has 
that  fact  on  the  morality  of  the  Bible  as  a  whole  ?  Can 
there  be  the  shadow  of  a  pretence  that  the  Bible  holds  up 
his  example  to  our  imitation,  or  does  anything  more  than 
narrate  his  wild  and  pathetic  story  ?  What  was  Jephthah 
but  a  rude,  ignorant,  half-heathen  freebooter  who  was  an 
instrument  in  the  hands  of  God  to  effect  His  purposes? 
It  may  be  that  the  tradition  of  the  Jews  is  true;  that 
Phinehas  was  the  priest  who  offered  this  human  sacrifice, 
and  that  the  horror  of  it  so  roused  the  indignation  of  the 
people  that  the  High  Priest  was  driven  from  his  office. 
This  would  account  for  the  priesthood  being  transferred 
to  the  House  of  Ithamar,  the  younger  branch  of  the  House 

1  Is.  xlv.  7 ;  compare  Amos  iii.  6. 

2  See  Kalisch,  ad  loc. 


DAVID'S  SINS  g5 

of  Aaron,  in  whose  hands,  without  reason  assigned,  we  find 
it  for  a  long  period  of  years  until  the  older  line  was  re- 
stored in  the  person  of  Zadok.  It  is  said  that  Idomeneus, 
the  Homeric  king  of  Crete,  in  exactly  the  same  way  vowed, 
in  the  peril  of  a  great  storm,  that  he  would  sacrifice  the 
first  thing  that  met  him  if  he  was  saved.  He  was  met  by 
his  eldest  son,  and  slew  the  youth  in  accordance  with  his 
vow.  But  Crete  was  at  once  plunged  in  ruinous  civil  war, 
and  Idomeneus  was  driven  from  his  kingdom  by  the  indig- 
nation of  his  subjects.  Why  should  we  suppose  that  the 
religion  of  the  half-caste  Gileadite  outlaw  was  in  this  re- 
spect superior  to  that  of  the  grey-haired  Cretan  king? 
And  if  history  have  any  lesson  at  all,  why  should  this 
story,  with  its  many  touches  of  redeeming  nobleness,  have 
been  obliterated  from  those  early  annals  of  an  anarchic 
time  ?  In  the  dehverance  which  he  wrought  for  his  nation, 
Jephthah  was  one  of  the  '  heroes  of  faith ;'  but  does  this  im- 
ply that  he  was  a  model  for  us  in  any  other  respect  ?  Was  not 
Samson,  too,  one  of  the  heroes  of  faith  ?  Yet  his  life  was 
stained  for  years  with  every  species  of  sensuality  and  folly, 
vii.  Or  take  the  life  of  David,  the  favourite  hunting- 
field  for  those  who,  in  ignorance  of  what  the  Bible  is,  de- 
sire on  false  principles  to  hold  it  up  to  ridicule.  This  was 
exactly  what  the  Prophet  Nathan  foresaw,  when  he  told 
David  that  his  sins  would  cause  the  enemies  of  the  Lord 
to  blaspheme.  The  Scripture  narrative  does  not  gloss 
over  David's  crimes.  It  teHs  us  of  his  duplicity,  of  his 
adultery,  of  his  murder,  of  his  cruelty :  and  '  this,'  say  the 
scoffers,  '  is  your  man  after  God's  own  heart ' !  Now  that 
phrase,  like  thousands  which  are  currently  quoted  from  the 
Bible,  is  entu-ely  misapplied.  David  is  not  called  in  the 
abstract '  a  man  after  God's  own  heart ;'  ^  but  is  described 
1  1  Sam.  xiii.  14 ;  Ps.  Ixxxix.  20 ;  Acts  xii.  22. 


86  THE   BIBLE 

in  that  expression  as  a  king  who  would  accomplish,  better 
than  Saul  had  done,  the  task  for  which  he  was  appointed. 
His  errors,  like  those  at  which  we  have  been  glancing, 
were  more  the  vices  of  his  age  than  of  the  man.  Neither 
his  own  conscience  nor  the  conscience  of  his  day  would 
condemn  him  for  deceiving  Achish ;  or  for  having  several 
wives ;  or  for  putting  the  Ammonites  under  saws  and  har- 
rows of  iron ;  or  even  perhaps  for  recommending  Joab  and 
Shimei  to  the  vengeance  of  his  son.  He  did  indeed  com- 
mit crimes  of  the  most  heinous  dye,  which  were  seen  to 
be  such  both  by  himself  and  by  his  people ;  and  for  these 
he  repented  with  a  bitter  repentance.  When  a  man  has 
repented  with  all  his  heart,  is  he  to  be  taunted  with  his 
former  sins  as  though  they  expressed  his  real  natui'e  or 
his  final  condition  ?  Would  it  be  fair  to  call  St.  Augustine 
a  thief,  a  liar,  and  a  debauchee  because  of  the  offences  of 
his  hot  and  evil  youth  ?  David  is  our  model,  not  in  his 
wickedness,  but  in  his  self-abasement ;  not  in  his  unworthy 
fall  and  failure,  but  in  his  devotion,  his  magnanimity,  his 
conquest  over  his  worst  passions,  his  sense  of  God's  pre- 
sence, his  many  impulses  of  chivalric  nobleness.  We  have 
in  his  story  an  unvarnished  narrative,  and  its  straightfor- 
wardness makes  it  aU  the  more  instructive.  To  pretend 
that  he  is  represented  as  '  the  man  after  God's  own  heart ' 
in  the  sense  that  his  evil  deeds  were  approved,  is  wilfully 
to  distort  the  meaning  of  a  fragmentary  clause. 

viii.  It  is  so  necessary  to  be  honest  and  truthful  about 
these  questions,  and  such  deadly  evils  are  resulting  from 
the  silence  by  which  men  shii-k  them,  that  I  will  next  refer 
to  what  seems  to  me  the  most  dubious  and  dreadful 
transaction  which  stains  the  troubled  annals  of  David's 
reign. 

The  kingdom  had  been  devastated  by  thi-ee  years' 


DAVID  87 

famine,  and  David,  probably  by  means  of  the  priests  and 
their  Urim  and  Thummim,  '  inquii-ed  of  the  Lord.'  ^  The 
answer  which  he  received  was, '  Blood  upon  Saul  and  upon 
his  house,-  because  he  slew  the  Gibeouites ! '  The  Gibe- 
onites  were  a  remnant  of  the  Canaanites,  who,  by  trickery, 
had  secured  a  sworn  exemption  from  the  Canaanite 
extermination  and  had  been  taken  into  the  service  of  the 
Temple.  Saul  in  his  zeal  had  sought  to  slay  them.  David 
offers  them  an  atonement.  They  decline  any  money 
ransom,  and,  on  David's  promise  to  do  anything  which 
they  required,  they  demand  that  seven  of  Saul's  sons 
should  be  hung  up  '  unto  the  Lord.'  ^  David  grants  this 
request,  and  makes  his  selection,  choosing  five  of  the 
nephews  of  his  former  wife  Michal,^  and  two  sons  of 
Rizpah  the  concubine  of  Saul.  The  seven  hapless  youths 
were  slain,  and  impaled  together  on  the  top  of  the  hill,  and 
*  after  that  God  was  intreated  for  the  land.' 

Wliat  are  we  to  make  of  this  terrible  story  ?  Are  we  to 
regard  it  as  a  laudable  human  sacrifice  ?  Are  we  to  con- 
sider it  as  truly  expressive  of  the  mind  and  will  of  God  ? 

For  my  part  I  regard  it  as  a  true  fragment  of  the  annals 
of  David's  reign,  convejdng  exactlj'  such  lessons  as  are  con- 
veyed in  all  true  history ;  for  History,  too,  is  a  book  of 
God.  Many  years  ago  one  of  our  ablest  judges  told  me 
that,  at  a  gathering  of  working  men,  an  intelligent  artisan 
got  up,  nan-ated  the  story,  and  asked  '  whether  it  was  not 
meant  to  imply  that  God  was  pacified  by  the  blood  of  in- 
nocent human  victims  ? '     To  all  appearance  it  is  a  story 

1  Lit.  'sought  the  face  of  the  Lord'  (2  Sam.  xxi.  1). 

2  So  the  Septuagint  reads. 

3  I.e.  impaled  or  crucified  in  public. 

*  The  true  reading  in  2  Sam.  x.\i.  8  is,  'Merab,  Michal's  sister' 
(see  1  Sam.  xviii.  19).     The  chronicler  omits  the  story  altogether. 


88  THE   BIBLE 

of  human  sacrifice,  and  one  which  contains  some  very 
lurid  elements.  It  has  probably  been  preserved  out  of 
admiration  for  the  motherly  devotion  of  Rizpah  the 
daughter  of  Aiah,  watching  the  corpses  of  Armoni  and 
Mephibosheth— 

Her  two  strong  sons 

Dead  in  the  dim  and  lion-haunted  ways. 

But  in  what  sense  can  it  be  said  that  it  is  a  '  word  of  God ' 
to  us? 

May  we  not  find  some  light  in  dealing  with  such  passages 
when  we  notice  the  peculiar  forms  of  speech  adopted  in 
Old  Testament  History,  and  see  that  they  are  not  to  be 
pressed  to  extreme  conclusions  ?  Thus  in  2  Sam.  xxiv.  1 
we  read,  '  And  again  the  anger  of  the  Lord  was  kindled 
against  Israel,  mid  Re  moved  David  against  them,  saying, 
Go  number  Israel  and  Judah.'  Yet  though  the  temptation 
is  attributed  to  God,  we  read  in  verse  10,  'And  David's 
heart  smote  him,  and  he  said  unto  the  Lord,  I  have  sinned 
greatly.' 

Is  it  in  accordance  with  anything  which  God  has  revealed 
as  to  His  will  and  natui'e,  if,  taking  the  expressions  with 
a  literalness  which  does  not  accord  with  ancient  and 
Oriental  modes  of  phi-aseology,  we  assume  that  the  blood 
of  seven  innocent  young  men,  five  of  them  in  the  third 
generation,  was  required  to  prevent  Him  from  continuing 
to  afflict  an  innocent  people  for  the  long-past  crime  of  their 
dead  king  ?  '  If  this  would  be  barbarity  below,'  says  Dr. 
Martineau,  '  it  cannot  be  holiness  above.  It  would  be  no 
more  possible  that  what  would  be  e\al  in  man  should  be 
good  in  God  than  that  a  circle  on  earth  should  be  a  square 
in  heaven.' 

Be  this  as  it  may,  is  it  not  quite  sufficient,  so  far  as  the 


HETEROGENEOUS  ELEMENTS  89 

Bible  is  concerned,  to  lay  down  the  broad  indisputable 
principle  that '  belief  in  Divine  guidance  is  not  of  necessity 
belief  that  such  guidance  can  never  be  frustrated  by  the 
laxity,  the  infirmity,  the  perversity  of  man,  alike  in  the 
domain  of  action  and  the  domain  of  thought '  ?  ^ 

Whenever  the  Old  Testament  historians  narrate  certain 
facts  about  kings  and  Prophets,  whether  with  or  without 
reprobation  of  those  deeds  when  they  are  evil,  it  is  as  true 
as  of  the  whole  story  of  the  Israelites,  that  '  these  things 
are  written  for  our  admonition  ; '  and  that  in  these  things 
they  were  figui'es  for  us  '  to  the  intent  that  we  should  not 
lust  after  evil  things  as  they  also  lusted.'  ^ 

So  that,  again  and  again,  we  fall  back  on  the  proposition 
that  the  Old  Testament  contains  some  very  heterogeneous 
elements.  It  is,  as  Heine  said,  '  the  great  family  chronicle 
of  the  Jews.'  We  find  in  it  '  snatches  of  rude  song,  frag- 
ments of  custom-made  law,  tradition,  history,  legislation, 
theology,  ethics,  proverbs,  idyls,  poetry,  letters— authentic, 
anonymous,  pseudonymous— all  mingled  together  and 
collected  from  a  space  of  years  as  widely  separated  as  the 
days  of  King  Alfred  from  the  days  of  Queen  Victoria.' 
In  such  an  anthology  of  fragments  is  it  not  inevitable 
that  there  should  be  some  discrepancies  and  divergent 
points  of  view  ?  Supposing,  it  has  been  said,  that  a  man 
should  try  to  represent  the  biography  of  the  English 
people,  and  in  order  to  do  so  should  make  a  compilation 
from  the  fragments  of  Saxon  sagas  and  Witenagemot  de- 
cisions, with  some  paragraphs  of  the  Venerable  Bede,  of 
Gildas,  of  Beowulf,  some  poems  of  Caedmon,  of  Walter 
Mapes,  of  Chaucer  and  Drayton  and  Skelton  and  Thomas 

1  Mr.  Gladstone  in  the  North  American  Beview. 

2  1  Cor.  X.  5,  11. 


90  THE   BIBLE 

Tusser,  some  chapters  of  Froissart's  Chronicles,  and  of 
William  of  Tyre  and  the  Gesta  Dei  per  Francos,  and  the 
historic  plays  of  Shakespeare,  Spenser's  Epithalamion,  and 
parts  of  Milton  and  Bacon,  ending  with  selections  of  Pope, 
Cowper,  Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning— would  it 
not  be  absurd  to  suppose  that  all  would  be  exactly  on  the 
same  level  of  moral  insight  ?  ^  Yet  externally  such  a  col- 
lection would  offer  some  slight  analogy  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. And  why  would  it  not  as  a  whole  be  a  sacred 
book  ?  Not  because  the  hand  of  God  is  less  visible  in  the 
history  of  England  than  in  that  of  Israel ;  not  because  the 
inspiration  of  God's  Holy  Spirit  has  been  exclusively  con- 
fined to  the  sacred  writers ;  but  because  such  a  collection 
would  have  no  truth  to  make  known  to  us  respecting  the 
ways  and  the  will  of  God  which  is  not  already  implicitly 
revealed  in  Scripture. 

The  whole  history  of  England,  and  of  all  the  greatest 
modern  nations,  has  been  moulded  and  influenced  by  the 
ideas  set  forth  in  the  Bible,  which  lays  before  us  the  record 
of  the  Divine  education  of  the  earlier  race  of  man.  There 
was  granted  to  the  teachers  and  prophets  of  Israel,  even 
before  ^  God  spoke  unto  us  by  a  Son,'  a  degree  of  illumina- 
tion which,  though  fitful  and  partial,  was  incomparably 
more  intense  as  a  whole  than  any  which  is  found  in  the 
greatest  of  pagan  writers.  The  literature  of  the  Jews  is 
far  more  exclusively  religious  than  was  the  case  in  any 
other  people     Their  books  are,  as  a  whole,  more  sacred, 

^  '  Ainsi  se  forma  .  .  .  par  le  melange  des  616ments  les  plus  divers, 
ee  eonglom^rat  strange  oil  se  trouvent  confondus  des  fragments 
d'6pop6e,  des  debris  d'histoire  sainte,  des  articles  de  droit  coutu- 
mier,  d'anciens  chants  populaires,  des  contes  de  nomades,  des  uto- 
pies,  de  16gendes,  .  .  .  des  moreeaux  propli^tiques.'— Kenan,  Hist, 
du  Peuple  Israel,  iv.  112. 


THE  MESSAGES   OF   GOD  91 

more  exalted,  more  precious,  more  universal,  more  diffusive 
and  penetrating,  more  indispensable  to  the  human  race, 
more  '  profitable  for  doctrine,  for  reproof,  for  correction, 
for  instruction  in  righteousness,  that  the  man  of  God  may 
be  perfect,  thoroughly  fui-nished  unto  all  good  works/ ^ 
than  any  other  books  which  the  world  has  ever  seen  or 
known.  They  contain,  as  no  other  books  contain,  all 
things  necessary  to  salvation;  they  reveal,  as  no  other 
books  reveal,  the  will  of  Heaven.  Amid  much  which  they 
themselves  teach  us  to  regard  as  transitory  and  imperfect, 
even  as  '  weak  and  beggarly,'  -  they  enshrine  more  clearly 
and  more  authentically  than  any  other  writings  the  mes- 
sages of  God.  This  is  time  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. It  is  incomparably  more  true  of  the  New  Testament, 
from  which  we  learn  the  glad  tidings  of  eternal  life. 

1  2  Tim.  iii.  16. 

2  Gal.  iv.  9 ;  Kom.  viii.  3 ;  Heb.  vii.  18.  The  line  of  thought  in 
this  chapter  is  found  in  not  a  few  of  the  Fathers.  For  instance,  St. 
Chrysostom,  speaking  of  Ps.  cxxxvii.,  says,  exactly  as  I  have  done, 
'  Though  these  u-ords  are inegnant  icith  rage  and  vengeance  they  are  the 
expression  of  the  fury  of  the  captives.  Hie  prophets  often  do  not  speak 
their  oivn  tnind,  hut  represent  the  j)ctssions  of  others.'  Elsewhere  he 
gets  over  the  difficulty  {e.g.  in  Ps.  cix.)  by  calling  it  '  a  prophecy  in 
the  form  of  a  ciirse'  (see  Chase,  pp.  55,  72). 


CHAPTER  VI 

ANTITHESES  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

'  What  is  the  straw  to  the  wheat?  saith  the  Lord.'— Jer.  xxiii.  28. 

'  Amid  changing  interpretations  (our  aim  is)  not  to  add  another, 
but  to  renew  the  original  one ;  the  meaning,  that  is,  of  the  words  as 
they  first  struck  on  the  ears  or  flashed  before  the  eyes  of  those  who 
heard  and  read  them.'— Jowett. 

Thus  far  we  have  spoken  mainly  of  the  Old  Testament, 
and  it  would  be  possible  indefinitely  to  expand  the  proof 
that  it  contains  some  elements  which  reflect  the  lower 
standard  of  rude  ages,  and  that  its  moral  teaching  and 
spiritual  nobleness  are  not  on  one  uniform  level. 

It  will  be  sufficient  to  touch  on  but  one  more  illustration 
—namely,  the  marked  difference  between  the  Law  and  the 
Prophets ;  between  Mosaic  and  Gospel  principles ;  between 
Levitism  and  spiritual  religion. 

i.  When  we  read  the  books  of  Numbers  and  Leviti- 
cus we  can  hardly  wonder  that  Pharisees  thought 
that  the  whole  world  'depended  on  the  right  burning 
of  the  two  kidneys  and  the  fat.'  Turn  to  the  Prophets, 
and  we  find  an  almost  contemptuous  disparagement 
of  the  rites  and  sacrifices  of  the  current  ceremonialism. ^ 

1  Is.  i.  11-14 ;  Hos.  vi.  6 ;  Jer.  vi.  20,  vii.  21-23 ;  Amos  v.  21-24 ; 
Mic.  vi.  6-8,  &c.  I  do  not  quote  Ezek.  xx.  25,  as  the  meaning  is 
uncertain. 

92 


THE   OLD   TESTiVMENT  93 

It  is  from  among  the  antitheses,  and  even  the  antino- 
mies of  the  Bible— which  are  in  themselves  relative  and 
fragmentary,  but  are  often  supplementary  and  comple- 
mentary to  each  other— that  we  must  gather  its  final 
revelation. 

ii.  Even  if  we  turn  to  the  New  Testament  we  find  dis- 
tinct differences  in  the  modes  of  representing  the  truth. 
No  one  can  read  the  Fourth  Gospel  after  the  first  tliree 
without  observing  the  impress  of  a  different  mind.  The 
old  Fathers  were  broadly  right  when  they  described  the 
first  three  as  'bodily,'  and  the  fourth  as  the  'spiritual' 
Gospel. 

iii.  Again,  from  the  dawn  of  criticism,  all  readers  have 
noticed  the  marked  differences  of  standpoint  which  sepa- 
rate the  teaching  of  St.  James  from  that  of  St.  Paul,  and 
the  teaching  of  St.  John  from  that  of  both.  There  is  no 
iiTcconcilable  contradiction,  but  there  is  wide  divergence 
in  the  method  of  presentation. 

Luther,  with  the  self-confidence  which  marked  some 
of  his  utterances,  said  bluntly  that  St.  Paul  taught  *  "We 
are  saved  by  faith,'  and  St.  James  'We  are  saved  by 
works,'  and  that  it  was  nonsense  to  pretend  to  harmonise 
the  two  utterances.  But  that  depends  entirely  on  the 
question  whether  the  'faith'  and  the  'works'  meant 
exactly  the  same  thing  on  the  lips  of  St.  James  and  of 
St.  Paul ;  and  we  know  by  careful  examination  that  they 
did  not. 

iv.  But  it  is  when  we  contrast  the  Old  Testament  with 
the  New  that  we  perceive  most  fully  the  chasm  which 
separates  some  portions  of  Scripture  from  others.  "We  can 
no  longer  be  surprised  that  books  should  have  been  written 
like  the  Antitheses  of  Marcion  to  set  forth  these  apparent 
oppositions. 


94  THE  BIBLE 

Many  sects  of  the  early  heretics  felt  themselves  so 
entirely  unable  to  adjust  the  balances  of  revelation,  or  to 
understand  the  contrasted  presentations  of  the  Jehovah 
of  the  Hebrews  and  the  God  and  Father  of  oui-  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  that  they  abandoned  the  Old  Testament  alto- 
gether. They  represented  it  as  the  work  of  an  inferior  or 
even  of  an  evil  deity,  whom  they  called  the  Demiurge  or 
Creator  of  the  World.  Marciou's  book  was  composed  of 
texts  which  he  regarded  as  iiTCConcilably  in  contradiction 
with  each  other— such  as,  on  one  side,  'An  eye  for  an  eye, 
and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,'  and  on  the  other,  '  I  say  unto  you, 
Resist  not  evil ; '  or,  on  one  side,  '  Cursed  be  he  who  keep- 
eth  back  his  sword  from  blood  (of  the  Moabites),'  ^  and  on 
the  other,  '  I  say  unto  you,  Love  your  enemies.' 

Can  any  amount  of  sophistry  maintain  that  there  is  not 
an  immense  chasm  between  the  spirit  of  the  djing  prayer 
of  Zachariah  the  son  of  Jehoiada,  ^  The  Lord  look  upon  it 
and  require  it,'  and  the  djdng  prayer  of  St.  Stephen, '  Lord, 
lay  not  this  sin  to  their  charge '  ?  And  do  we  not  see  the 
chasm  bridged  by  the  prayer  of  Chi'ist  as  He  was  nailed 
to  the  Cross,  'Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not 
what  they  do '  ? 

Marcion,  by  the  admission  of  his  opponents,  was  an  able 
and  honest  man,  however  deeply  he  was  mistaken.  Had 
he  and  others  like  him  been  able  to  grasp  the  fact  that 
the  Old  Testament  contains  only  the  record  and  the  out- 
come of  a  multifarious,  fragmentary,  and  progressive  reve- 
lation, they  might  have  been  saved  from  falling  into  false 
and  Manicheau  views. 

V.  But  even  in  the  Old  Testament  is  there  no  difference 
in  the  point  of  view  between  '  Noah  offered  bui*nt  offerings ; 
and  the  Lord  smelled  a  sweet  savour,  and  said  in  His  heart, 

1  Jer.  xlviii.  10. 


TRANSITORY  LEVITISM  95 

I  will  not  again  any  more  cui'se  the  ground'  (Gen.  viii. 
21),  and  'Thou  desirest  not  sacrifice,  else  would  I  give  it 
Thee,  but  Thou  delightest  not  in  burnt  offerings'  (Ps.  li. 
16) ;  or  'Sacrifice  and  offering  Thou  didst  not  desire'  (Ps. 
xl.  6)  ?  Or  between  the  injunctions  of  the  Pentateuch  {e.g. 
Num.  xxix.  1-40)  and  such  passages  as  Is.  i.  11-14,  Jer. 
vii.  21-23,  Hos.  vi.  6?  I  do  not  say  that  the  points  of 
view  are  whoUy  irreconcilable,  but  undoubtedly  they 
differ. 

vi.  And  it  was  strange  that  men  did  not  learn  from  the 
New  Testament  itself  the  true  way  to  remove  their  per- 
plexities. 

Wliile  the  Rabbis  were  teaching  that  the  world  was  only 
created  for  the  sake  of  the  Mosaic  Law;  that  every  jot 
and  tittle  of  it  was  divinely  stored  with  supernatural  mys- 
teries ;  that  God  Himself  wore  phylacteries,  and  dady  re- 
peated the  Sh'ma— Paid  was  teaching,  as  a  fundamental 
position  of  the  Gospel,  that  the  Levitic  Law  was  typified 
by  the  bondwoman  and  her  son  who  were  to  be  cast  out, 
and  not  to  share  with  the  son  of  the  freewoman ;  and  by 
'  Mount  Sinai  in  Ai-abia  which  gendereth  to  bondage.'  It 
was  a  ministry  of  the  letter  and  of  death ;  at  the  best  a 
transitory  flash,  an  evanescent  glory. 

One  of  the  earliest  sub-Apostolic  wi'iters,  the  author  of 
the  Epistle  of  Barnabas,  whose  book  was  regarded  as  so 
sacred  that  it  is  appended  to  the  Sinaitic  manuscript  of  the 
New  Testament  and  was  read  aloud  in  public  worship, 
was  so  filled  with  the  hatred  of  Judaism  that  he  went 
much  farther  than  St.  Paul.  He  argued  at  length  that  the 
Levitic  dispensation  had  only  been  enforced  upon  the 
Jews  in  anger  and  as  a  positive  evil ;  and  that  the  practice 
of  circumcision,  which  the  Law  commanded  on  pain  of 
Divine  vengeance,  had  never  been  anything  but  coijcision, 


96  THE  BIBLE 

a  vile  personal  mutilation,  into  which  the  Jews  had  been 
misled  by  the  deception  of  an  evil  angel. ^ 

vii.  But  while  this  view  was  entirely  false,  it  is  extraor- 
dinary how  entirely  Christians  have  failed  to  grasp  the 
Gospel  teaching,  that  the  whole  Levitic  Law,  which  had 
been  regarded  for  centui'ies  as  the  most  sacred  essence  of 
the  Old  Dispensation,  was  imperfect,  transitory,  and  no 
longer  worthy  of  observance.- 

It  was  in  reliance  upon  this  Divine  estimate  that  Luther 
says,  '  We  will  neither  see  nor  hear  of  Moses ;  for  Moses 
was  given  only  to  the  Jewish  folk,  and  does  not  extend  to 
us  Gentiles  and  Christians.'  And  again,  in  that  sweeping 
tone  which  often  sounds  ii-reverent,  '  If  any  one  brings  up 
Moses  with  his  laws  and  will  compel  you  to  keep  them, 
say  "  Go  to  the  Jews  with  your  Moses.  I  am  no  Jew ;  leave 
me  unperplexed  with  Moses." '  ^  With  more  reverence  but 
with  equal  clearness  the  saintly  Richard  Baxter  speaks  of 
the  Old  Testament  as  the  imperfect  vehicle  of  a  revelation 
as  yet  imperfect, '  so  that  faith  is  not  injured  by  doubts  of 
the  truth  of  some  words  of  the  Old  Testament,  or  of  some 
small  circumstantials  in  the  New.' 

viii.  Let  us  consider  some  further  illustrations  of  this 
important  subject. 

(a)  A  large  part  of  the  Levitic  Law  is  taken  up  by  the 
distinction  between  clean  and  unclean  meats,  to  which 
immense  importance  is  attached,  and  which  profoundly 
affected— as  it  does  to  this  day— the  life  of  the  orthodox 

1  See  Ep.  Barn.  ii.  xv.  &c.  One  main  object  of  the  Epistle  is  to 
show  that  ceremonial  Judaism  was  not  an  ordinance  of  God  at  all, 
but  due  to  the  seduction  of  an  e\'il  spirit. 

2  Heb.  viii.  13,  x.  1 ;  Eom.  iv.  13,  viii.  13 ;  Gal.  iv.  9,  &c. 

3  Werke,  ed.  Halle,  xx.  203,  iii.  10 ;  Kostlin,  Luthers  Theologie,  ii. 
84 ;  Ladd,  Doctrine  of  Sacred  Scripture,  ii.  160. 


CHRIST  AND   THE  LAW  97 

Jew.  Out  of  this  and  similar  regulations  the  Scribes, 
Ral»bis,  and  Pharisees  had  constructed  an  iron  network 
which  cramped  and  entangled  the  souls  of  their  votaries, 
and  t}Tannously  dominated  over  their  minutest  actions 
from  the  cradle  to  the  gi-ave.  As  it  were  with  one  wave 
of  the  hand,  our  Lord  sets  all  this  triviality  aside.  He 
called  the  multitude  and  said,  '  Kot  that  which  goeth  into 
the  mouth  defileth  a  man ; '  and  '  this  He  said,  making  all 
meats  clean.'  ^  It  is  not  externalism,  it  is  not  bodily  exer- 
cise, which  has  the  smallest  intrinsic  importance  in  the 
sight  of  God,  but  moral  righteousness  and  a  holy  heart. 

(h)  How  completely,  too,  did  Christ  disparage  the  whole 
lal)orious  system  of  Pharisaic  ablutions,  when  He  said  of 
moral  offences,  '  These  are  the  things  which  defile  a  man ; 
but  to  eat  with  unwashen  hands  defileth  not  a  man.'  - 

(c)  And  with  what  small  sympathy  does  the  Evangehst 
speak  of  '  the  washing  of  cups,  and  pots,  and  brazen  ves- 
sels, and  of  tables,'  ^  which  fills  one  entire  treatise  of  the 
IMishna  and  occupies  many  pages  of  the  Talmud ! 

{(1)  And  there  was  another  respect,  even  more  funda- 
mental, in  which  Christ  not  only  annulled  the  Mosaic 
rules,  but  treated  them  as  concessions  to  immaturity  and 
evil  passions.  In  the  Mosaic  Law  both  polygamy  and  di- 
vorce had  been  directly  sanctioned.  Our  Lord  passed  His 
condemnation  upon  both  as  being  untrue  to  nature  and  to 
God. 

(e)  Once  more,  the  Jews  had  done  much  by  their  tradi- 
tions to  render  nugatory  the  blessed  and  primeval  ordi- 
nance of  the  Sabbath.  By  an  elaborate  system  of  childish 
outward  regulations  known  as  aboth  and  toldoth,  or  pri- 


'  Mark  vii.  19  (according  to  the  true  rendering). 
«  Matt.  XV.  20.  3  Mark  vii.  4,  8. 

7 


98  THE  BIBLE 

mary  and  derivative  rules— mles  which  they  themselves 
constantly  evaded,  when  it  served  their  purpose,  by  decep- 
tive tricks  and  specious  semblances— they  had  tiu-ned  the 
Sabbath  day  into  a  burdensome  fetish.  To  them  the  poor 
hungry  Apostles  were  guilty  of  a  flagrant  '  scandal '  when 
they  plucked  the  ears  of  corn  and  rubbed  them  in  their 
palms,  to  satisfy  the  cravings  of  nature  while  they  walked 
through  the  cornfields.  How  sharply  did  our  Lord  rebuke 
their  officiousness !  How  thoroughly  did  He  expose,  in 
this  and  many  other  particulars,  the  depth  of  their 
hypocrisy !  How  plainly  did  He  demonstrate  on  many 
occasions  the  peril  of  turning  the  Law  of  Moses  into  a 
pernicious  idol  by  exorbitant  inferences  and  multiplied 
minutiaB !  How  overwhelmingly  did  He  convict  the 
Priests  and  Pharisees,  who  were  blind  leaders  of  the 
blind,  of  ostentatiously  deifying  the  trifles  of  religionism 
while  they  were  constantly  obliterating  the  fundamental 
truths  of  religion ! 

Whatever  be  the  origin  of  the  non-genuine  addition  to 
the  text  of  Luke  (after  vi.  5)  in  the  '  Codex  Bezae,'  the 
writer  of  it,  unless  he  was  incorporating  some  'unwi'itten 
dogma '  or  unrecorded  tradition,'  shows  how  thoroughly 
he  had  grasped  the  spirit  of  Christ's  teaching  in  these 
respects.^ 

'  The  Law,'  says  St.  John,  'was  given  by  Moses ;  grace  and 
truth  came  by  Jesus  Christ.' 

(/)  Nor  were  these  the  only  utterances  by  which  Jesus 
showed  that  the  system  of  Judaism  was  waxing  old  and 

1  See  tlie  author's  edition  of  St.  Luke  in  the  Camhridge  Bible  for 
Schools  (Greek,  p.  179).  The  addition  is,  'The  same  day  He  saw  a 
man  working  on  the  Sabbath,  and  said  to  him,  Man,  if  thou  knowest 
what  thou  art  doing,  blessed  art  thou :  but  if  thou  knowest  not,  thou 
art  cursed,  and  a  transgressor  of  the  law.' 


CHRIST  AND  THE  LAW  99 

was  ready  to  vanish  away.  When  James  and  John,  the 
sons  of  Thunder,  wished  to  call  down  fire  from  heaven  on 
the  offending  village  of  En  Gannim,  they  doubtless  thought 
that  their  fierce  intolerance  was  justified  by  the  example  of 
so  splendid  a  Prophet  as  Elijah,  who  was  narrated  to  have 
destroyed  in  succession  two  captains  of  fifties  with  their 
fifties.  How  swiftly  decisive  was  oui-  Lord's  reply !  How 
total  His  repudiation  of  the  precedent !  How  unmistak- 
able His  enunciation  of  an  order  of  things  which  reversed 
and  condemned  the  tone  which  runs  through  parts  of  the 
Old  Testament  records !  He  turned  and  rebuked  the  two 
Apostles,  and  said, '  Ye  know  not  what  manner  of  spii-it  ye 
are  of.  For  the  Son  of  Man  is  not  come  to  destroy  men's 
lives,  but  to  save.'  Had  that  single  utterance  been  rightly 
understood,  what  a  flood  of  light  would  it  have  thrown  on 
the  true  interpretation  of  Scripture  ! 

Here  let  me  place  side  by  side  two  anecdotes. 

1.  Rene,  Duchess  of  Ferrara,  daughter  of  Louis  XII., 
was  a  thoughtful  and  pious  princess,  and  a  warm  admirer 
of  Calvin.  In  a  letter  to  the  great  Reformer  of  Geneva 
she  made  the  wise  remark  that '  David's  example  in  hating 
his  enemies  is  not  applicable  to  us.'  It  might  have  been 
supposed  that  Calvin  would  at  once  have  endorsed  a  senti- 
ment which  only  echoed  the  teaching  of  Chiist.  '  It  was 
said  to  them  of  old  time.  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour 
and  hate  thine  enemy ;  but  I  say  unto  you.  Love  your 
enemies,  bless  them  that  curse  you,  and  pray  for  them  that 
despitefully  use  you  and  persecute  you.' 

But  Cahdn  was  shocked  by  the  remark  of  the  Duchess ! 
He  curtly  and  sternly  answered  her  that  '  Such  a  gloss 
would  upset  all  Scripture ; '  that  even  in  his  hatred  David 
is  an  example  to  us,  and  a  tj^pe  of  Clu'ist ;  and  '  Should  we 
presume  to  set  ourselves  up  as  superior  to  Christ  in  sweet- 


100  THE  BIBLE 

ness  and  liumanity  ? '  ^  The  Princess  was  wlioUy  right,  the 
theologian  disastrously  in  the  wrong.  It  would  have  been 
better  for  Calvin  had  he  more  truly  understood  the  teach- 
ing of  Christ  and  the  inferior  standard  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. Had  he  done  so,  he  would  have  been  saved  from 
the  worst  errors  of  his  life— the  burning  of  Servetus,  the 
recommendation  of  persecution  to  the  Protector  Somerset, 
and  the  omission  to  raise  his  voice  in  aid  of  the  miserable 
and  exiled  congregation  of  John  k  Lasco.  But,  as  Grotius 
truly  said,  the  Calvinists  were  for  the  most  part  as  severe 
to  aU  who  differed  from  them  as  they  imagined  God  to  be 
severe  to  the  greater  part  of  the  human  race.  And,  un- 
happily, the  Pilgrim  Fathers  and  their  earliest  descendants 
imbibed  these  perilous  errors,  and  though  they  were  them- 
selves fugitives  from  kingly  despotism  and  priestly  in- 
tolerance, they  tortured  harmless  old  women  whom  they 
called  witches,  and  treated  saintly,  if  misguided,  Quakers 
with  remorseless  fmy. 

2.  When,  in  '  Old  Mortality,'  Balfour  of  Burley  proposes 
to  massacre  the  inhabitants  of  Tillietudlem  Castle,  'By 
what  law,'  asks  Henry  Morton,  'would  you  justify  the 
atrocity  you  would  commit  ? ' 

'  If  thou  art  ignorant  of  it,'  replied  Burley,  '  thy  com- 
panion is  well  aware  of  the  law  which  gave  the  men  of 
Jericho  to  the  sword  of  Joshua  the  son  of  Nun.' 

'  Yes,  but  we,'  answered  the  divine,  'live  under  a  better  dis- 
pensation, which  instructeth  us  to  return  good  for  evil,  and 
to  pray  for  those  who  despitef ully  use  us  and  persecute  us.' 

Surely  the  humble  minister  in  the  fiction  spoke  deeper 
wisdom  than  the  world-famous  Reformer ! 

1  '  When  I  come  to  such  Psalms  wherein  Da%ad  eurseth  his  enemies, 
oh  !  then  let  me  bring  my  soul  down  to  a  lower  note,  for  these  words 
were  made  only  to  fit  David's  mouth.'— Thomas  Fuller. 


PERVERTED   USES  101 

Does  the  fact  that  elements  of  imperfect  morality  and 
narratives  capable  of  misuse  occur  in  the  Bible,  destroy  its 
eternal  value  ?  Let  me  quote  on  this  subject  the  excellent 
remarks  of  an  American  writer.  '  It  is,'  he  says, '  no  argu- 
ment against  its  greatness  that  men  should  misuse  it  as 
they  have  done  so  often,  any  more  than  it  is  a  fair  argu- 
ment against  the  ingrain  worth  of  good  corn  or  wheat  that 
so  much  of  it  should  be  turned  into  whisky.  We  have 
drawn  from  it  the  power  to  save  men  and  to  slay  them,  to 
establish  peace  and  to  mass  artillery,  to  be  Christians  of 
the  noblest  type  and  bigots  of  the  direst.  It  is  the  text- 
book alike  of  youi*  iron-clad  Calvinism  and  your  sunny  and 
most  generous  Uuiversalism ;  the  volume  in  which  the 
Quaker  finds  food  for  his  quietness,  and  your  MUlerite  of 
all  brands  for  his  craze.  It  was  the  corner-stone  of  the 
gi'eat  Puritan  foundation  which  underlies  our  nation's  life ; 
it  was  also  the  book  from  which  the  Puritan  drew  his  in- 
fernal power  to  hang  the  Quakers,  whip  and  banish  the 
Baptists,  and  to  burn  the  witches ;  while  the  advocates  of 
human  slavery,  in  the  times  I  easily  remember,  found 
proof  in  it  to  show  that  slavery  was  a  divine  institution, 
and  men  like  Garrison  that  it  was  accursed  of  God  and 
man.  Always  in  the  Bible  we  may  find  this  power  for 
good  and  e\'il,  the  inspiration  of  life  unto  life  and  of  death 
imto  death.  The  fine  wheat  of  it  even  has  been  turned 
into  a  sour  mash,  and  so  distilled  tlu'ough  the  twisted 
worm  of  bigotry  and  intolerance  that  men  have  become 
drunk  thereby  and  insane,  and  that  things  have  been  done 
in  the  name  of  God  and  the  Holy  Book  which  are  the  dis- 
gi'ace  of  God  and  the  Holy  Book.' 

That  the  Bible  has  been  fatally  perverted  by  ignorance 
and  self-interest  no  more  condemns  it  than  does  the  misuse 
of  a  nominal  Christianity  condemn  the  perfectness  of  the 


102  THE  BIBLE 

Gospel.  '  Lies  have  been  propagated  in  its  name ;  swarms 
of  vile  creatures  have  made  it  an  inexhaustible  prey,  and 
have  heaped  upon  its  head  abuses  scandalous  and  loath- 
some. It  has  had  to  contend  with  the  desolation  of  bar- 
barism, the  selfish  pretences  of  kings  and  priests,  and  the 
stupefied  spirits  of  a  downtrodden  populace;  but  it  has 
lived  through  all.  It  has  suffered  that  which  would  have 
been  tenfold  death  to  aught  less  Divine  j  and  it  has  even 
given  life  and  beneficent  power  to  institutions  in  them- 
selves deadly,'  ^ 

It  would  be  as  senseless  to  condemn  Christianity  as  to 
condemn  the  Bible  for  the  gross  perversions  to  which  they 
have  alike  been  subjected. 

It  will  be  observed  that '  Biblical  difficidties '  arise  all  but 
exclusively  from  incidental  passages  in  the  Old  Testament. 
From  the  days  of  St.  Peter  downwards  men  have  racked 
and  tortured  Scripture— stretched  and  twisted  it  as  it  were 
with  a  windlass  {GTps(3Xovmv,  2  Pet.  iii.  16)  to  their  own 
destruction.  Hence  the  misuse  of  its  isolated  texts  to 
sanction  the  deadliest  crimes  against  the  sacred  rights  of 
mankind,  and  to  block  up  with  anathemas,  and  shouts  of 
'  infidel '  or  '  heretic,'  the  path  of  advancing  knowledge. 
But  we  may  lay  down  the  two  rules :  (1)  that  there  can  be 
no  deadlier  desecration  and  perversion  of  the  true  purpose 
and  meaning  of  the  Bible  than  when  it  is  used  to  justify 
slavery,  or  religious  persecution,  or  intolerant  bigotry,  or 
any  form  of  false  religion  and  false  morality ;  (2)  that  it  is 
always  rightly  used  when  its  teachings  are  applied  to  make 
men  more  noble  and  more  happy.  There  is  surely  a  most 
luminous  principle  enshrined  in  the  words  of  St.  John : 
'  The  Law  was  given  by  Moses,  hut  grace  mid  truth  came  by 
Jesus  Christ' 

1  Howitt. 


BISHOP  WESTCOTT  103 

'  No  doubt/  says  Bishop  Westcott,^ '  we  have  often  used 
the  Scriptures  for  purposes  for  which  they  were  not 
designed.  We  have  treated  them  too  often  as  the  que 
mechanical  utterance  of  the  Spii'it,  and  not  as  wi'itings 
through  which  the  Spirit  Himself  still  speaks.  There  is 
an  immeasurable  difference  between  making  the  Bible  a 
storehouse  of  formal  premises  from  which  doctrinal  sys- 
tems can  be  infallibly  constructed,  and  making  it,  in  its 
whole  fulness,  the  final  test  of  necessary  truth.' 
^  The  Revelation  of  the  Father,  p.  vii. 


CHAPTER  VII 

'VERBAL  DICTATION'  AN  UNTRUE  AND  UNSPIRITUAL 
HYPOTHESIS. 

'He  that  takes  away  Reason  to  make  way  for  Revelation,  puts  out 
the  light  of  both.'— John  Locke. 

What  has  been  already  said  should  decisively  prove  that 
the  theory  of  a  '  verbal  dictation '  of  the  Bible  by  God  flies 
in  the  face  of  the  most  obvious  phenomena  which  meet  us 
when  we  open  the  sacred  page.  Each  separate  writer 
shows  that  he  is  human  and  a  man  '  of  like  nature '  with 
oui'selves.i  Each  several  writer  has  his  own  style,  his  own 
phrases,  his  own  methods.  One  is  fervent  and  impassioned, 
another  is  prosaic  and  cold.  One  writes  in  swift  arrowy 
sentences,  another  in  flowing  rhetorical  periods.  One  is 
annalistic,  another  diffuse.  Take  the  Prophets.  The  lan- 
guage, the  imagery,  the  form,  the  structure  are  different 
in  each  prophetic  book.  The  character  and  temperament 
of  the  Prophets  are  stamped  upon  their  writings,  and  they 
are  seen  to  be  men  of  essentially  different  types.-  Godet 
imaginatively  compares  Isaiah  to  a  majestic  and  over- 
shadowing oak;  Jeremiah  to  a  weeping- willow  in  a  de- 

1  Acts  xiv.  15 ;  Jas.  v.  17. 

2  Jerome  criticises  the  'rnsticitas '  of  some  of  the  Prophets  (Prooem. 
in  Es.,  Id.  in  Jer.).  He  al-so  (ad  Galat.  iii.  1)  speaks  of  the  'solecisms' 
of  St.  Paul. 

104 


VARIETIES  OF   STYLE  105 

sorted  fortress ;  Ezekiel  to  an  aromatic  sbrub ;  Daniel  to  a 
solitary  tree  in  the  midst  of  a  mighty  plain.  Or  take  the 
Psalms,  in  which,  as  Calvin  says, '  the  Prophets  themselves 
hold  converse  with  God '  and  lay  bare  their  inmost  feelings 
and  infirmities.  *  In  many  passages,'  he  says, '  we  may  see 
the  servants  of  God  so  tossed  to  and  fro  in  their  prajxrs 
that,  almost  crushed  at  times,  they  only  win  the  palm  after 
arduous  efforts.  On  the  one  side  the  weakness  of  the  flesh 
l)etrays  itself :  on  the  other  the  power  of  faith  exerts  itself.' 
In  the  face  of  such  phenomena,  does  not  the  '  verbal  dicta- 
tion' theory  become  absurd,  and  almost  repellent?  Did 
the  Divine  voice  of  the  Eternal  simulate  human  indi- 
viduality and  human  imperfections?  Of  the  Bil)le  we  are 
forced  to  see  that  '  its  text  is  not  infaUible ;  its  grammar 
is  not  infallible ;  its  science  is  not  infallible ;  and  there  is 
a  grave  question  whether  its  history  is  altogether  in- 
fallible.' 1 

It  might  seem  incredible  that,  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
any  could  still  profess  a  theory  so  crude  and  so  unscrip- 
tural.  It  is  in  opposition  to  all  the  evidence  of  facts 
which  show  that  it  was  God's  will  to  reveal  Himself  in  the 
Old  Testament  not  immediately  and  completely,  but 
mediately,  indirectly,  progressively,  partially,  as  we  could 
alone  receive  the  manifestation  of  His  wilL- 

Direct  supernatural  dictation  was,  however,  the  asserted 
doctrine  of  some  of  the  later  Reformers,  and  it  continued 
to  be  held  for  many  years. 

It  is  distinctly  stated  in  the '  Helvetic  Confession,'  drawn 
up  in  1675.  *  The  Hebrew  text,'  says  this  document, '  both 
as  regards  consonants  and  as  regards  vowels— whether  the 
vowel  points  themselves,  or,  at  least,  the  significance  of  the 

1  Sanday,  Oracles  of  God,  36. 

2  Compare  Ezek.  xx.  19,  xxxiii.  18-23 ;  1  Cor.  iii.  2. 


106  THE   BIBLE 

points— is  divinely  inspii-ed.'^  It  would  be  difficult  to 
formulate  a  proposition  more  glaringly  in  violation  of  the 
known  facts  as  to  the  sacred  test. 

Some  post-Reformation  theologians  went  to  incredible 
lengths  of  folly  in  their  endeavour  to  erect  the  Bible  into 
a  sort  of  uncreated  idol ;  a  '  Fom-th  Person  of  the  Trinity ' 
to  which  the  Holy  Spirit  had  abdicated  His  own  agency. 
The  Hellenistic  Greek  in  which  the  New  Testament  is 
wi'itten  is  a  decadent  form  of  Greek,  but  they  treated  it  as 
'  holy  Greek/  a  form  of  the  language  peculiar  to  God  !  In 
some  passages  the  Greek  of  the  New  Testament  writers 
betrays  provincialism,  and  the  Book  of  Revelation  is  some- 
times startlingly  un grammatical.  Yet  men  like  Quenstedt, 
HoUar,  Calovius,  and  the  Wittenberg  theologians  in  1638, 
decreed  that  to  speak  of  barbarisms  and  solecisms  in  the 
New  Testament  would  be  a  blasphemy  against  the  Holy 
Ghost !  As  far  back  as  a.d.  600  Gregoiy  the  Great  speaks 
of  the  sacred  writers,  not  as  penmen,  but  as  '  li\'ing  and 
writing  pens '  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  phrase  was  adopted 
and  amplified,  and  it  became  the  fashion  to  talk  of  the 
Scripture  writers  as  '  amanuenses  of  God,  hands  of  Christ, 
scribes  and  notaries  of  the  Spirit.'  Such  language  can 
only  spring  from  inadequate  conceptions,  and  it  collapses 
in  every  direction  at  a  touch. 

1.  '  There  is  such  a  thing  as  weakening  a  good  cause  by 
overstating  it,  and  there  have  been  instances  in  which  dis- 
gust and  rebellion  have  been  provoked  by  rulers  unwisely 
laying  claim  to  unlimited  authority,  when  by  making  more 
moderate  claims  they  would  have  placed  themselves  in  an 
unquestionalile  position  of  command.  Even  so  we  are  con- 
vinced that  it  is  better  for  Christianity,  which  is  ''the 

1  See  Buxtorf,  Tract,  de  Pmtct.  Vocal,  ii.  v.     Lee,  On  Inspiration, 

p.  447. 


'VERBAL   DICTATION'  107 

triitli,"  to  base  the  authority  of  Scripture  on  a  considera- 
tion of  that  wisdom  whicli  reflection  will  abundantly 
vindicate  for  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  than  to  rest  a 
stupendous  assertion  of  the  Bible's  Divine  authority  on  an 
idea  of  Biblical  infallibility,  which  reason  does  not  uphold, 
and  which  every  fresh  perusal  of  the  sacred  volume  gives 
us  some  additional  proof  is  untenable.' 

Yet  this  theory  will  find  maintainers  until  men  get  rid 
of  that  heresy  of  heresies,  the  worst  and  most  fundamental 
of  all  heresies,  which  lives  and  talks  as  if  God  had  with- 
drawn Himself  into  silence  since  the  daj'^s  of  old,  and  as  if 
men,  instead  of  living  and  moving  and  ha\dng  their  being 
in  Him,  have  to  get  on  as  best  they  can,  not  with  the  abid- 
ing presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  but  with  upheaped  masses 
of  Church  tradition  and  the  manifold  perplexities  of  a 
fragmentary  ancient  literature. 

Can  any  one  with  whom  the  love  of  truth  is  a  supreme 
law  refuse  to  believe  Ihat  nothing  which  would  be  posi- 
tively wicked  in  man  can  have  been  directly  sanctioned  by 
God  ?  ^  If  there  be,  as  no  sane  scholar  denies,  a  human 
element  in  Scripture,  can  it  be  free  from  human  limitations 
and  infirmities?  Let  any  humble  and  devout  Christian, 
who  has  endeavoured  to  form  an  adequate  conception  of 
God's  supreme  and  unspeakable  holiness,  study  the  Holy 
Volume,  and  ask  himself  whether  it  does  not  contain  many 
passages  which  can  only  be  read  historicalhj,  and  with 
direct  reference  to  their  place,  origin,  and  literary  expres- 
sion. Are  there  not  many  passages  Avliich  we  cannot  tliink 
that  God  in  any  sense  dictated,  without  signally  dishon- 
ouring His  majesty  and  holiness  ?  The  theory  of  verbal 
dictation  is  not  hol}^,  but— however  unconsciously— irre- 
verent. It  does  not  tend  to  devotion,  but  to  idolatry  and 
1  See  Jas.  i.  13. 


108  THE  BIBLE 

materialism.  So  far  from  exalting  the  Bible  it  degrades 
it  into  a  hollow  Memnon's  head  for  the  passage  of  a  voice, 
and  robs  it  of  its  most  precious  elements,  both  human  and 
divine. 

2.  Even  were  we  to  adopt  the  proposition,  which  involves 
a  constructive  blasphemy,  that  God  had  verbally  dictated 
the  whole  Bible,  such  verbal  dictation  would  long  ago  have 
become  worse  than  useless.  For  the  text  has  undergone 
thousands  of  variations,  of  which  some  affect  questions  of 
extreme  importance.'  Some  passages  have  been  inter- 
polated ;  others  have  ceased  to  be  comprehensible ;  some 
have  been  falsified ;  in  a  few  the  text  is  hopelessly  corrupt. 
All  this  is  now  a  matter  of  certainty :  yet  so  great  a  man 
as  Dr.  John  Owen  condemned  the  Complutensian  Polyglot 
for  its  various  readings,  and  said  'the  notion  that  the 
Bible  had  not  been  properly  protected  bordered,  in  his 
opinion,  upon  Atheism ' !  -  The  vowel  points,  which  con- 
stitute a  running  commentary  on  the  entire  Hebrew  text, 
and  which  the  post-Reformation  divines  vehemently  as- 
serted to  be  divinely  inspired,  are  now  known  to  be  com- 
paratively modern.  A  text  verbally  dictated  could  be  of 
no  use  to  the  majority  of  mankind,  who  have  to  be  content 
with  translations,  all  of  wliich  are  imperfect,  and  some 
of  which  are  erroneous  in  hundreds  of  particulars.^    St. 

1  Even  Bishop  Wordsworth  admitted  (on  2  Cor.  iii.  3)  that  'ex- 
planatory interpolations  have  been  a  fertile  som-ee  of  error  in  some 
MSS.  of  the  sacred  volume.'  Nor  would  it  be  true  to  say  that  the 
variations  of  the  text  are  always  unimportant  (see  Rom.  ix.  5 ;  1  Tim. 
iii.  16;  1  John  v.  7,  8,  &e.). 

2  See  Dr.  Ginsburg,  TJtc  Ecvised  Version,  p.  9. 

3  Errors  in  numbers  may  be  of  little  importance.  But  there  are 
grave  variations  of  the  text  in  John  i.  18,  Acts  xx.  28,  and  there  can- 
not be  inerrancy  in  the  present  text  of  the  genealogies  of  Caleb  and 
Saul ;  in  the  discrepant  account  of  David's  introduction  to  Saul ;  in 


'VERBAL  DICTATION'  109 

Augustine,  writing  to  St,  Jerome,  says  that  when  he 
comes  across  anything  at  variance  with  the  truth  he  can 
only  suppose  either  that  his  copy  is  faulty,  or  that  the 
translator  lias  erred,  or  that  he  has  mistaken  the  meaning. 
But  since  all  except  a  fraction  of  mankind  have  to  depend 
on  faulty  copies,  erroneous  translations,  and  highly  fallil)le 
as  weU  as  grossly  erroneous  expositions,  of  what  avail 
would  verbal  dictation  have  been  to  them,  even  if  it  had 
ever  been  vouchsafed  ? 

3.  Indeed,  it  might  seem  as  if  the  plainest  facts  which 
lie  on  the  surface  of  the  Scriptures  were  meant  to  render 
impossible  so  mechanical  a  superstition.  For  the  wi'iters 
in  all  cases  show  themselves  entii'ely  indifferent  to  verbal 
fidelity. 

i.  For  instance,  we  find  the  18th  Psalm  both  in  the 
Psalter  and  in  2  Sam.  xxii.,  but  though  the  substance  is 
the  same,  the  wording  is  by  no  means  identical,  and  the 
one  version  is  very  inferior  to  the  other.  In  ancient  days 
the  notion  of  literary  property  was  non-existent,  so  that 
the  Prophets,  in  many  instances,  make  use  of  each  othei-'s 
wi'itings  in  a  way  which  in  modern  times  would  have  been 
described  as  plagiarism ;  but  they  are  not  in  the  least  de- 
gree particular  to  reproduce  the  exact  expressions.  Some- 
times, in  the  Bible,  quotations  are  referred  to  ^vrong 
names ;  and  are  applied  in  shades  of  meaning  which  ignore 
their  context  and  their  primary  significance.  There  is 
rrrhxl  variation  in  those  narratives  and  utterances  which 
might  seem  to  be  of  all  others  the  most  intensely  sacred. 
In  the  Old  Testament  there  are  duplicate  narratives  of  the 

divergent  chronologies;  in  separate  allusions  such  as  Mark  ii.  26, 
Matt,  xxiii.  35,  &c.  And  in  St.  Stephen's  speech  Alford  reckons 
several  mistakes  (Acts  vii.  6,  7,  14,  16)  and  seven  allusions  to  the 
Ilaggadah  (2,  4,  14,  16,  22,  23,  42,  53). 


110  THE   BIBLE 

Creation ;  duplicate  accounts  of  the  Flood  j  duplicate  ver- 
sions even  of  the  Decalogue. 

ii.  In  the  New  Testament,  if  any  words  as  words  are 
immediately  Divine  they  are  surely  those  of  the  Lord 
Christ.  Yet  the  discourses  of  Ckrist  are  not  reproduced 
by  the  Evangelists  with  verbal  identity.  The  reports  of 
them  differ  in  expression.  Take  the  words  in  which  Christ 
instituted  the  Last  Supper,  and  His  last  words  to  His  dis- 
ciples before  His  Ascension,  and  the  inscrij)tion  on  the 
Cross,  and  the  Lord's  Prayer.  Amid  jjerfect  unity  of  sub- 
stance there  is  no  identity  in  the  verbal  details,  but  omis- 
sions, additions,  and  verbal  variations ;  and  in  St.  Luke  and 
St.  Matthew  we  have  variant  records  even  of  the  Beatitudes 
and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.^ 

iii.  Further,  the  sacred  wi'iters  describe  to  us,  in  some 
cases,  their  own  methods  of  composition ;  and  so  far  from 
claiming  that  their  books  were  dictated  by  God,  they  ac- 
knowledge their  indebtedness  to  previous  documents  and 
authorities,  like  other  historians.  What  can  be  more 
sacred  than  the  Grospel  history  ?  Yet  St.  Luke,  the  author 
of  that  infinitely  precious  Gospel  which  has  been  justly  de- 
scribed as  '  the  most  beautiful  book  in  the  world,'  in  telling 
us  how  he  wrote,  gives  no  hint  of  miraculous  guidance,  but 
only  claims  the  merit  of  a  painstaking  historian.  It  is  e\ddent 
that  to  him  the  Divine  revelation  consisted  in  the  truths  re- 
corded, not  in  the  words  by  which  they  were  described.- 

iv.  Once  more,  so  little  careful  were  Apostles  and  Evan- 
gelists of  the  actual  words  of  the  Old  Testament  writers 

1  See  the  comments  of  Origen  and  Augustine  on  Matt,  xxvii.  9. 
Augustine  says  that  the  Evangelists  wrote  'ut  quisque  meminerat, 
et  ut  cuique  cordi  erat.'     De  Cons.  Evv.  ii.  5. 

2  '  It  soomod  good  to  me  also.'  The  words  *  and  to  the  Holy  Spirit ' 
are  a  late  interpolation. 


QUOTATIONS  111 

that  they  most  frequently  rely  upon  the  Greek  translation 
(tlie  LXX),  It  is  a  translation  made  '  at  different  times, 
by  differeut  authors,  with  no  unity  of  execution  and  no 
authoritative  revision.'  They  freely  use  this  version, 
though  it  is  sometimes  altogether  erroneous,  sometimes 
untrustworthy.  The  LXX  translators  often  show  the  bias 
of  Alexandrian  philosophy,  and  make  changes  in  accord- 
ance with  it.  They  are  sometimes  influenced  by  Jewish 
legends  (the  Haggadah)  and  Jewish  ceremonial  traditions 
(the  Ilalacha). ^  Some  of  them  were  imperfectly  acquainted 
with  Greek,  some  with  Hebrew,  and  one  or  two  of  them 
with  both.  In  many  places  they  have  not  understood  the 
original ;  in  others  they  tamper  with  it ;  in  others  they 
follow  a  text  unknown  to  us.^  If  there  were  the  least 
truth  in  the  doctrine  of  verbal  dictation  we  should  have 
to  claim  it  for  the  Septuagint  also,  as  Augustine  ^  did ;  but 
that  is  a  proposition  so  flagrantly  absurd  that  it  has  been 
universally  al)andoned.  Out  of  228  passages  quoted  from 
the  Old  Testament,  in  the  New  there  are  but  53  which 
Mgree  accurately  with  the  original  Hebrew.  In  76  the 
New  Testament  differs  from  both  the  Greek  and  the 
Hebrew ;  and  in  99  the  New  Testament,  the  Greek,  and 
the  Hebrew  are  aU  variant.*   Could  there  be  a  more  decisive 

1  See  Hody,  De  Bihh  text  orient.,  passim;  and  Frankel,  Ucher  d. 
Ei)if!iiss  (1.  Pat.  Exeges.  auf  d.  Alexandr.  Hcrmcneutik,  ^$  7,  17,  23. 

-  The  version  of  Aquila,  a  Jewish  proselyte  of  Pontus,  was  ex- 
pressly made  (about  A.D.  130)  because  the  Jews  desired  a  more  literal 
Greek  version  than  the  Septuagint. 

3  Aug.  De  Civ.  Dei,  xv.  43 ;  Frankel,  Vorstudicn,  i.  258-267. 

*  See  the  full  analysis  in  Turpio,  The  Old  Testament  in  the  Neio. 
Mill  (on  Ileb.  xiii.  25)  says  that  the  Apostles  sometimes  quote  the 
Septuagint  in  places  where  ■  si  reponerentur  Hebri\?a,  non  mode  peri- 
ret  vis  argumentationis  Apostolicro,  sed  ne  uUus  quidem  foret  argu- 
mentationis  locus.'    So  Chrysostom,  on  Ps.  cix.  (0pp.  Montfaucou, 


112  THE  BIBLE 

proof  that  the  gross  material  notion  of  '■  verbal  dictation ' 
was  entirely  unknown  ? 

V.  In  some  cases,  too,  the  Apostles  appear  to  quote 
passages  which  do  not  occur  at  all  in  Scripture.  Thus 
St.  James  says,  '  Think  ye  that  the  Scripture  speaketh  in 
vain  ?  Doth  the  Spirit  which  He  made  to  dwell  in  us  long 
unto  envying  ? '  Similarly,  the  quotations  in  Eph.  v.  14, 
1  Cor.  ii.  9  have  been  referred  to  an  *  Apocalj^se  of  Ehjah.' 
In  Luke  xi.  49,  51  and  John  vii.  38  the  passages  quoted 
come  from  the  Old  Testament,  but  they  are  freely  inter- 
mingled and  adapted.  These  and  other  passages,  together 
with  St.  Jude's  quotation  from  the  Book  of  Enoch,  without 
the  least  intimation  that  it  is  apocrj^ihal,  show  both  the 
freedom  with  which  the  words  of  Scripture  were  treated 
and  the  fact  that  the  formulae  of  Scripture  citation  must 
not  be  pressed  into  unwarrantable  inferences. 

vi.  It  is  useless  to  waste  any  further  time  over  the  slay- 
ing of  a  theory  which  has  been  slain  ten  thousand  times 
by  the  force  of  facts.  'Catholics,'  says  the  Bishop  of 
Amycla,  'are  under  no  sort  of  obligation  to  beheve  that 
inspiration  extends  to  the  words  of  Holy  Scripture  as  well 
as  to  the  subject  matter  which  is  therein  contained.' 
Further,  may  we  not  learn  from  the  teaching  of  thousands 
of  years  of  history  that  God  could  never  have  intended  us 
to  possess  hundreds  of  pages  '  verbaUy  dictated '  by  Him- 
self ?  For  there  could  have  been  but  one  object  for  so 
stupendous  a  miracle— namely,  that  man  should  be  in 
possession  of  an  enormous  mass  of  infallible  truth.  Such 
a  miracle  could  not  have   been  wrought  with  purely 

V.  245),  admits  that  some  of  the  N.T.  quotations  are  applications. 
Bengel  on  Matt.  i.  22,  ii.  15,  18,  and  on  Heb.  ii.  6,  '«o«  intetpreta- 
tionem  sed  exornationcm  adducit.'  See  other  passages  in  Tholuck, 
Das  A.  T.  in  N.  T.,  pp.  2-6. 


'VERBAL   DICTATION'  113 

nugatory  results.  The  revealed  truths  on  which  aU 
Christians  are  agreed  could  easily  be  written  on  a  single 
page ;  and  that  Divdne  revelation  is  a  sufficient  guidance 
for  their  lives.  But  the  points  of  Biblical  interpretation 
on  which  churches  are  able  only  to  form  the  most  opposite 
conclusions,  are  to  be  counted  on  many  a  page  of  Scrip- 
ture. Men  in  all  ages  have  twisted  Scripture  ad  infinitum 
into  accordance  with  their  preconceived  prejudices,  and 
refused  to  read  in  the  Bible  any  truths  except  those  which 
they  brought  to  it  ready  made.  Others,  who  have  known 
better,  have  often,  from  timidity  or  self-interest,  remained 
silent.^ 

1  The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  writing  to  Dr.  Tait,  when  he  was 
Bishop  of  London,  speaks  of  'that  mistaken  reticence,  which,  go 
where  I  would,  I  perpctiuiJhj  found  destroying  the  truthfidness  of  re- 
ligion'  {Life  of  Archhishoi)  Tait,  i.  292). 


CHAPTER  VIII 
'plenary  inspiration.' 

'Every  word  of  God  is  pure.  Add  thou  not  unto  His  words,  lest 
He  reprove  thee,  and  thou  be  found  a  liar.'— Prov.  xxx.  5,  6. 

'Nemo  vir  magnus  sine  aliquo  afflatu  divino  unquam  fuit.'— Cic. 
pro  Arch.  8. 

But  since  the  same  human  invention  about  the  Bible 
reasserts  itself  in  other  vague  and  unauthorised  phrases, 
it  is  necessary  to  add  that  no  obligation  to  accept  and 
defend  every  text  of  Scripture  is  to  be  deduced  from  any 
assertion  that  it  is  '  plenarily  inspired.' 

The  word  '  inspiration '  is  a  word  of  the  most  indefinite 
character,  and  so  many  different  senses  have  been  attached 
to  it  that  it  can  hardly  be  used  without  introducing  a  pos- 
sibihty  of  confusion. 

What  is  inspiration  ?  ^ 

If  by  '  inspiration '  be  meant  the  influence  of  the  Spirit 
of  God  upon  the  mind  of  man— dilating,  strengthening, 
elevating,  revealing— then  we  must  believe  that  every  pure 
and  sweet  influence  upon  the  soul— all  that  is  best  and 
gi-eatest  in  philosophy,  eloquence,  and  song— is  due  to  the 

^  The  term  (irvevfiaToipdpot)  as  applied  to  the  New  Testament  writers 
is  perhaps  first  found  in  Theophilus  of  Antioch,  a.d.  181.  The 
word  (BediTvevaToc)  of  the  N.T.  occurs  in  Clement  of  Alexandria. 
Sanday,  Inspiration,  p.  33.  But  see  2  Pet.  i.  21.  Philo  speaks  of 
the  dE6xpr)CTa  "Kdyia,  and  in  2  Mace.  vi.  23  we  read  of  the  dedKTiarog 
vofiodeaicu, 

114 


INSPIRATION  115 

inspiration  of  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God.  '  Every  good  gift 
and  every  perfect  boon  is  from  above,  and  cometh  down 
from  the  Father  of  Lights,  with  whom  is  no  variableness, 
neither  shadow  cast  by  turning.'  There  is  therefore  an 
ethnic  as  well  as  a  Jewish  and  a  Christian  inspiration. 
The  best  of  the  Fathers  acknowledged  this.  They  did  not 
deny  tlie  gifts  of  the  Spirit  to  the  wise  thinkers  and  wi'iters 
of  Greece  and  Rome.  They  admit  that  the  great  pagans 
'  knocked  at  the  door  of  truth.'  One  of  the  earliest  Ckris- 
tian  writers,  St.  Justin  MartjT,  borrowed  from  Plato  the 
beautiful  belief  in  a  germinal  word — the  Logos  spermatilios 
—of  which  all  are  partakers  in  various  measure,  and 
which  is  the  source  of  all  enlightenment.     He  held  that— 

—in  all  ages  and  on  every  sod 
Whatever  truth  man  troweth  is  of  God. 

It  is  the  teaching  of  Solomon  that  '  the  spirit  of  man  is 
the  candle  of  the  Lord.'  It  is  the  doctrine  of  St.  John  that 
there  is  a  light  ever  coming  into  the  world,  which  lighteth 
every  man.  It  is  the  truth,  recognised  in  the  greatest  book 
of  the  Apocrypha,  that  '  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  filleth  the 
world.' ^  Wisdom  is  'the  brightness  of  the  everlasting 
light,  the  breath  of  the  power  of  God,  and  a  pure  influence 
flowing  from  the  glory  of  the  Almighty,'  which  'being  but 
one  can  do  all  things,  and  remaining  in  herself,  regene- 
rateth  all  other  powers,  and  maketh  aU  things  new ; '  and 
'  in  all  ages  entering  into  holy  souls,  maketh  them  friends 
of  God  and  prophets.'  - 

1  Wisdom  i.  7,  lit.  '  hath  filled  and  still  fills.'  Compare  Jer.  xxiii. 
24.  So  Philo,  'God  hath  filled  all  things,  and  hath  penetrated  all 
things,  and  hath  left  nothing  empty  or  void  of  Himself'  {De  Legg. 
AUcgg.  iii.  2). 

2  Wisdom  vii.  25-27.     Compare  Ecclus.  xiv.  22-27. 


116  THE  BIBLE 

The  same  belief  was  shared  by  the  greatest  of  the  Jews 
and  of  the  heathen.^  Philo,  lofty  as  were  his  conceptions 
of  inspiration,  yet,  in  more  than  one  passage,  claims  it  for 
all  truly  good  and  earnest  men. 

1.  It  is  in  this  sense— not  in  any  sj^ecial  sense  exclusively 
applied  to  Scripture— that  the  best  English  writers  have 
always  used  the  word  '  inspire.'    Thus  Milton  prays— 

And  chiefly  Thou,  O  Spirit  that  dost  prefer 
Before  all  temples  the  upright  heart  and  pure, 
Instruct  me,  for  Thou  knowest  .  .  . 

what  in  me  is  dark 
Illumine ;  what  is  low,  raise  and  support. 

And  again— 

So  much  the  rather,  Thou,  celestial  light, 

Shine  inward,  and  the  mind  through  all  her  powers 

Irradiate  :  there  plant  eyes,  all  mist  from  thence 

Pm-ge  and  disperse,  that  I  may  see  and  tell 

Of  things  invisible  to  mortal  sight. 

And  again  he  speaks  of  Urania,  his  celestial  patroness,  who 

Dictates  to  me  slumbering,  or  inspires 
Easy  my  unpremeditated  verse. 

And  prays— 

Inspire  as  Thou  art  wont 
My  prompted  song  else  mute. 

And  even  Pope,  at  the  beginning  of  his  'Messiah,' 

writes— 

Do  Thou  my  soul  inspire. 
Who  touched  Isaiah's  lips  with  hallowed  fire ; 

and  Herrick  says  that  he  can  only  write 

when  the  Spirit  fills 
The  fantastic  panicles 
Full  of  fire. 

1  See  Plato,  Ion.  pp.  533,  544 ;  Tim.  p.  72 ;  Arist.  De  Mundo,  4 ; 
Cic.  de  Div.  i.  50 ;  Livy,  v.  15 ;  Verg.  ^ii.  vi.  47,  &c. 


INSPIRATION  117 

2.  We  are  assured  by  Professor  Abraham  that  even 
among  the  Jews  there  is  no  single  opinion  on  the  question 
of  inspiration  which  can  be  called  the  Jewish  opinion. 
And  the  Christian  Church  never  attempted  to  define  either 
the  nature,  the  action,  or  the  limits  of  inspiration.  In 
every  instance  in  which  the  word  is  used  in  our  Prayer 
Book  it  tends  dii'ectly  to  exclude  the  notion  that  inspira- 
tion is  confined  to  Scriptui'e,  or  that  the  Bible  is  the  product 
of  an  exhausted  energy,  the  sepulchre  of  a  dead  influence. 
On  the  contrary,  being  deeply  penetrated  with  the  trutli 
tliat  Christ  is  a  living,  not  a  dead  Christ,  a  present,  not  an 
absent  Christ— that  He  has  promised  to  be  with  us  always, 
and  that  He  giveth  His  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask  Him 
—the  Prayer  Book  always  refers  to  'inspiration,'  not  as  an 
exceptional  gift  of  infallibility,  but  as  the  continuous 
method  of  divine  guidance.  Thus  the  Church  teaches  us 
to  pray  to  God  that '  by  Thy  holy  inspiration  we  may  think 
those  things  that  be  good;'^  and  'cleanse  the  thoughts  of 
our  hearts  by  the  inspiration  of  Thy  Holy  Spirit ;'  ^  and 

Come,  Holy  Ghost,  our  souls  inspire, 
And  lighten  with  celestial  fire.^ 

We  beseech  God  'to  inspire  continually  the  universal 
Church  with  the  spirit  of  truth,  unity,  and  concord.'^ 
One  Article  speaks  of  '  Works  done  before  the  grace  of 
God  and  the  inspiration  of  His  Holy  Spirit.'  Again,  we 
pray  to  God, '  Grant  us  by  the  same  Spirit  to  have  a  right 
judgment  in  all  things.'  But  which  of  us  so  stupidly 
extends  and  perverts  the  words  as  to  suppose  that  the 
answer  to  our  prayers  will  make  us  universally  infallible  ? 

1  Collect  for  Fifth  Sunday  after  Easter. 

2  Collect  of  Anto-Commxmion  Service. 

3  Hyran  in  Ordination  Service. 

^  Prayer  for  the  Church  Militant,  &c. 


118  THE   BIBLE 

It  is  clear  therefore  that  the  view  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land was  that  expressed  by  Milton  in  the  'Animadver- 
sions ' :  '■  And  as  Thou  didst  dignify  our  fathers'  days  with 
many  revelations,  so  Thou  canst  vouchsafe  to  us  (though 
unworthy)  as  large  a  portion  of  Thy  Spirit  as  Thou 
pleasest.  For  who  shall  prejudice  Thy  all-governing  will, 
seeing  the  power  of  Thy  grace  is  not  passed  away  with  the 
primitive  time  as  fond  and  faithless  men  imagine,  but 
Thy  kingdom  is  now  at  hand  and  Thou  standest  at  the 
door.'  ^ 

Indeed,  the  whole  grandeur  of  Milton's  ideal  and  of 
Milton's  verse  was  based  on  the  conviction  that  God 
'  sends  His  Seraphin  with  the  bmming  coal  from  off  the 
altar  to  touch  and  hallow  the  lips  of  whom  He  will.'  He 
was  conscious  that  though  he  was  in  no  sense  of  the  word 
infallible,  he  was  (as  Dr.  Ai-nold  said  of  him)  not  surely 
uninspired  by  that  Holy  Spirit  to  whom  his  devout  prayers 
were  constantly  addressed. 

3.  And  with  this  accords  the  view  expressed  in  Scripture 
itself.  It  uses  the  word  '  inspiration '  of  that  manifold  and 
perpetual— but  neither  extinct  nor  abnormal— enlighten- 
ment, which  is  not  confined  to  any  one  period  or  any  one 
set  of  men.  '  There  is  a  spirit  in  man,'  says  the  Book  of 
Job,  'and  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty  giveth  him 
understanding.'  ^  '  See,  I  have  called  by  name  Bezaleel,' 
so  we  read  in  the  Book  of  Exodus,  '  and  I  have  filled  him 
with  the  Spirit  of  God  in  wisdom,  to  devise  cunning  work, 
to  work  in  gold  and  in  silver  and  in  brass.'  Do  those  ex- 
pressions imply  that  man  is  therefore  infallible  ?  or  that 
Bezaleel  the  son  of  Uri  was  the  divinest  artist  whom  the 
world  has  seen  ? 

Indeed,  this  gift  of  inspiration,  which  is  never  confused 
1  Animadversions.  ^  Job  xxxii.  8. 


INSPIRATION  119 

with  supernatural  infallibility,  is  recognised  alike  in  Scrip- 
ture, in  heathen  and  in  secular  Christian  literature.  '  I  am 
moved,'  said  Socrates,  '  by  a  certain  divine  and  spiritual 
influence.'  It  was  said  of  the  sculptor  Scopas,  that,  '  im- 
pelled by  a  certain  inspiration,  he  threw  himself  with  divine 
fervour  on  the  making  of  his  statues.'  Plato  says  that 
philosophers  'would  not  venture  to  teach  others,  unless 
they  were  excited  thereto  by  God  Himself.'  Cicero  speaks 
of  poets  as  inspired  by  a  certain  divine  influence,  and  of 
all  great  men  as  influenced  by  some  kind  of  divine  im- 
breathing  in  the  soul.  In  Scriptm*e,  though  the  word 
*  inspiration '  occurs  in  it  but  twice,  yet  the  influence  of  the 
Spirit  is  freely  ascribed  to  heroes  so  imperfect  as  Gideon, 
Jephthah,  and  Samson ;  to  rulers  like  Otlmiel  and  David ;  ^ 
to  wise  men  in  general;-  to  such  erring  men  as  Balaam 
and  Saul.'*  Nay,  even  the  discretion  of  the  ordinar}^  plow- 
man is  attributed  to  the  instruction  of  God.^ 

And  nothing  is  commoner  in  ordinary  Christian  litera- 
ture than  the  prayer  '  Do  Thou  my  soul  inspire.'  Sir  W. 
Raleigh  says  that  great  souls  are  stirred  up  by '  the  Infinite 
Spirit  of  the  Universal ; '  just  as  Carlyle  saj^s  that  '  Great 
men  are  the  inspired  (speaking  and  acting)  texts  of  that 
Divine  book  of  Revelations,  whereof  a  chapter  is  completed 
from  epoch  to  epoch  and  by  some  named  history.'  ^  '  The 
gifted  man,'  says  Fichte,  'becomes  the  mediator  of  the 
Divine  Spirit.  The  real  man  of  God  is  conscious  of  being 
seized  on  by  a  might  superior  to  his  own,  to  whose  behests 

1  1  Sam.  xiii.  14. 

2  Dan.  ii.  22. 

3  Num.  xxiv.  2 ;   1  Sam.  x.  6. 

*  Is.  xxviii.  23-26,  'For  his  God  doth  instruct  him  [the  plowman] 
to  discretion,  and  doth  teach  him.' 
5  Sartor  Resartus,  p.  108. 


120  THE  BIBLE 

he  consecrates  himself.'  ^  Haydn  said  of  his  mighty  chorus 
in  the  '  Creation,' '  Not  from  me,  but  from  above  it  all  has 
come ! '  With  this  view  of  an  inspiration,  which  yet  is 
wholly  different  from  infallibility,  the  Christian  Fa- 
thers and  our  own  Homilies  agree.  Speaking  of  Cicero's 
remarks  about  the  moral  law,  Lactantius  says  {Institf.  vi.  8) 
that  he  must  look  on  such  men  '  as  divinely  moved  by  the 
Spirit.'  Our  Homily  for  Whitsunday  says, '  It  is  the  Holy 
Ghost  and  no  other  thing  that  doth  quicken  the  minds  of 
men.'  ^ 

No  theory  of  Scriptural  inspiration  is  taught  by  Christ 
or  His  Apostles.  Indeed,  so  far  as  they  speak  of  it,  they 
teU  us  that  it  is  granted  to  all  believers.  No  exclusive 
inspiration  is  claimed  by  the  Scripture  writers,  as  a  whole, 
for  themselves  or  for  all  their  writings ;  nor  is  it  authorita- 
tively asserted  for  them  all  by  any  one  of  their  number. 
It  is  only  said  in  the  most  general  way  in  2  Pet.  i.  21, 
that  'Men  spake  from  God,  being  moved  by  the  Holy 
Ghost ; '  and  by  St.  Paul  that  '  Every  scripture '  [i.e.  every 
wi'iting)  '  inspired  of  God  is  also  profitable.'  ^ 

4.  '  Plenary  inspiration '  is  one  of  those  phrases  which 
may  be  mischievously  perverted  because  it  is  completely 
undefined.  It  is  impossible  to  say  what '  plenary '  inspira- 
tion means,  until  we  know  what  '  inspiration '  means,  and 

1  Fichte,  Sjyec.  TJieol.  p.  653. 

2  For  this  paragraph  I  am  indebted  to  Griffith's  Fundamentals, 
p.  172.  Mr.  W.  R.  Greg,  in  the  Creeds  of  Christendom,  defines  inspira- 
tion as  '  that  elevation  of  all  the  spiritual  faculties  by  the  action  of 
God  upon  the  heart,  which  is  shared  by  all  devout  minds  in  different 
degrees,  and  which  is  consistent  with  many  errors.' 

3  That  this  is  the  true  meaning  and  translation  of  2  Tim.  iii.  16  (as 
in  the  R.V.)  may  now  be  regarded  as  certain  ;  but  even  if  the  trans- 
lation of  the  A.V.  were  correct  the  general  expression  would  make 
no  difference  to  my  argument. 


INSPIRATION  121 

this  has  never  been  laid  down  in  any  creed.  Unfortunately, 
instead  of  trying  to  discover  the  nature  of  Scriptural  in- 
spiration by  induction  from  the  phenomena  of  the  books 
themselves,  men  have  fii*st  made  theii*  own  definition  of 
the  word,  and  then  tortm-ed  the  facts  of  Scripture  into 
conformity  with  it.  Had  they  followed  the  wiser  course 
they  would  have  found  that  '  as  inspiration  does  not  sup- 
press the  individuality  of  the  Biblical  writers,  so  it  does 
not  altogether  neutralise  their  human  infirmities  or  confer 
upon  them  immunity  from  error.  Too  often  the  expla- 
nations offered  of  these  discrepancies,  and  of  the  moral 
difficulties  presented  by  the  Old  Testament,  leave  much  to 
be  desired,  and  are  adapted  rather  to  silence  doubt  than 
to  satisfy  it.'  ^ 

Four  well-marked  theories  on  the  subject  have  been  held 
unchallenged  within  the  pale  of  the  Christian  Chiu'ch  alone, 
and  that  by  men  of  eminent  authority  and  earnest  faith. 

i.  The  first  may  be  called  the  Organic,  mechanical,  or 
'  dictation '  theory,  which,  when  universally  professed,  was 
not  held  with  any  consistency  even  by  Rabbis  and  Fathers.- 

ii.  The  second  theory  has  been  called  the  Dynamic.  It 
maintains  that  the  Bible,  though  not  dictated  by  God,  was 
yet  written  under  the  immediate  indefeasible  guidance  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  This  Adew  recognises  the  divine  energy, 
but  does  not  entirely  annihilate  the  human  co-operation.^ 
It  says,  as  St.  Chrysostom  says  of  St.  Paul  {d  koX  UavXog 

1  Professor  Driver,  Church  Congress  speech. 

2  If,  for  instance,  Papias  had  held  it  respecting  even  the  Evan- 
gelists, ho  would  not  have  written  about  St.  Mark  as  he  did  (Euseb. 
H.  E.  iii.  39,  15).  Origen  and  Augustine  are  compelled  to  relax  the 
stringency  of  their  mechanical  dogma  with  reference  to  the  variations 
of  the  Evangelists  in  order  and  phraseology. 

'  Origen  in  Matt.  iii.  {awepyovvroq  koX  tov  ayiov  Ylvev^aToq). 


122  THE   BIBLE 

tJv  dAA'  dv6pcoTTog  tjv)^  '  Even  though  he  was  a  Paul  he  was 
yet  but  a  man.' 

iii.  The  third  may  be  called  the  theory  of  Illumination, 
which  confines  the  divine  guidance  to  matters  of  faith  and 
doctrine.  It  recognises  degrees  in  inspiration.  Romish 
theologians  distinguish  between  antecedent,  concomitant, 
and  consequent  inspii-ation— the  latter  involving  nothing 
but  *a  grace  of  superintendeney '  which  prevented  the 
writer  from  grave  errors— as  distinguished  from  the  graces 
of  elevation,  direction,  suggestion.  Some  of  the  Jews  dis- 
criminated between  different  kinds  of  inspiration.  They 
drew  a  marked  distinction  between  the  spirit  which  in- 
spired the  Law  and  the  Prophets  and  that  which  was 
recognised  in  the  other  books  (Kethubim  or  Hagiographa).^ 

iv.  The  fourth  theory  may  be  described  as  that  of  gene- 
ral inspiration.  Those  who  hold  it  do  not  regard  the 
inspiration  of  the  sacred  writers  thi'oughout  the  7i'Jiole 
extent  of  Scripture  as  more  extraordinary,  transcendent, 
and  supernatural  in  kind,  nor  even  always  in  degree,  than 
that  which  is  vouchsafed  to  other  noble  and  holy  souls. 
This  view,  of  which  Schleiermacher  may  be  regarded  as 
the  foremost  representative,  looks  upon  Biblical  inspiration 
as  a  thing  entirely  subordinate  in  the  divine  economy.  It 
regards  the  New  Testament  as  simply  the  truthful  record 
of  the  life  and  doctrine  of  Christ,  and  does  not  consider 
that  the  action  of  the  Holy  Spirit  on  the  heart  of  its 
writers  was  specifically  distinct  from  the  analogous  in- 
fluence which  (as  all  admit)  He  exercises  on  the  heart  and 
intellect  of  aU  true  Christian  men.     They  believe  that,  by 

1  See  Maimouides,  More  Xci'ocliim,  ii.  37,  45.  The  Law  was  said 
to  be  inspired  by  the  'month  to  month'  or  highest  form  of  inspira- 
tion. On  its  Talmudic  superexaltatiou  see  Weber,  Syst.  d.  altsynag. 
Theol.  pp.  1-GO, 


THEORIES  OF  INSPIRATION  123 

its  witness  to  Christ,  the  Bible  animates  and  awakens  the 
religious  consciousness  of  men,  but  they  attach  no  attri- 
bute of  infallibility  or  supernatural  sanctity  to  all  its  par- 
ticular phrases  or  incidental  references.  This  view  has 
been  more  or  less  supported  by  theologians  so  different  as 
Erasmus,  R.  Simon,  Grotius,  Le  Clerc,  Pfaff,  Perrone, 
Dollinger,  Warburton,  Horsley,  Lowth,  Paley,  Clarke, 
Doddi'idge,  Laud,  Baxter,  Tillotson,  Thomas  Scott,  Whate- 
ley,  Hampden,  Thirlwall,  and  Alford,  and  an  ever-increas- 
ing multitude  of  living  scholars. 

5.  It  is  clear,  then,  that  the  maintenance  of  the  opinion 
that  the  Bible  is,  in  every  text  and  utterance,  inerrant,  is 
no  part  of  the  Christian  faith.  The  majority  of  Christians 
hold  that  it  is  throughout  human  as  well  as  divine ;  or  that 
it  is  only  illuminated  in  differing  and  intermittent  degrees ; 
or  that  it  is  divine  only  in  matters  of  faith ;  or  that  it  is 
divine  only  in  that  sense  in  which  all  else  is  divine  which 
is  good  and  noble.  Any  one  may  denounce  the  latter 
theories  of  inspiration,  but  no  one  can  alter  the  fact  that 
each  of  these  theories  has  been  held  by  divines  of  accredited 
faithfidness  in  every  branch  of  the  Christian  Church.  It 
is  certain  that  had  a  doctrine  so  stupendous  as  the  super- 
natural dictation  of  the  Bible  been  in  any  sense  true,  it 
woidd  not  have  been  so  completely  omitted  from  Scripture 
itself,  or  only  so  faintly,  obscurely,  and,  as  Coleridge  ex- 
presses it, '  obitaneously '  declared,  seeing  that  '  In  inf alli- 
])ility  there  are  no  degrees.'  St.  Augustine  says  of  St.  Paul 
that  he  was  '  inspiratus  a  Deo  sed  tamen  homo,'  ^  but  to  be 
human  connotes  multitudinous  limitations.  'How  can 
absolute  infallibiHty  be  blended  with  fallibility  ?  How  can 
infallible  truth  be  infallibly  conveyed  in  defective  and 
faUible  manuscripts,  in  defective  and  fallible  expressions, 
or  in  translations  which  are  liable  to  every  kind  of  error  ? ' 
^  Aug.  De  Consens.  Evv.  ii.  28. 


124  THE   BIBLE 

6.  Assuredly  one  or  other  of  the  latter  theories  is  alone 
in  accordance  with  all  the  facts.  *  Inspiration/  as  Scripture 
exhibits  it,  does  not  exclude  human  infirmity  or  error.  The 
Apostles  received  the  outpouring  of  Pentecost,  and  were 
'  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost,'  yet  they  do  not  conceal  from  us 
that  they  could  and  did  err,  and  that  they  were  men  '  of 
like  nature '  with  their  heathen  hearers,^  and  capable  of 
serious  mistakes  both  in  judgment  and  in  practice.  St. 
Paul  freely  admits  his  own  hesitations  and  uncertainties. 
On  one  occasion  he  has  a  serious  quarrel  with  Barnabas ; 
on  another  he  was  compelled  to  withstand  even  Peter  to 
his  face  because  he  stood  condemned.  He  does  not  pre- 
tend to  bow  in  abject  reverence  to  the  dicta  and  opinions 
of  his  inspired  brother  Apostles.^  The  guidance  of  the 
Spirit  was  promised  to  them.  They  were  inspired,  but  do 
not  claim  any  complete  infalHbility.  They  were  inspired 
only  as  to  essential  truth,  and  in  varying  degrees,  and  with 
individual  differences. 

7.  Except  by  a  slavishly  literal  interpretation,  by  falla- 
cious extensions  of  applicability,  and  by  inferences  which 
violate  every  sane  principle  of  interpretation,  there  is  no 
passage  of  Scripture  which  can  be  made  to  bear  the  im- 
mense weight  of  meaning  laid  upon  it  by  those  who  main- 
tain that  all  Scripture,  down  to  its  minutest  particulars, 
is  plenarily  or  supernaturally  inspired.^ 

8.  The  word  '  inspiration '  is,  as  we  have  seen,  so  vague 
in  meaning  that  for  aU  who  desire  clearness  of  thought  it 

1  Acts  xiv.  15  (comp.  Jas.  v.  17).  ^  (jal.  ii.  6. 

3  See  some  excellent  remarks  in  Sanday,  p.  87.  Driver,  TJie  Ex- 
positor, 1889,  i.  15.  Such  passages  as  Matt.  v.  18,  John  x.  35,  2  Tim. 
iii.  16,  2  Pet.  i.  20,  21  can  only  be  forced  into  assertions  of  the  entire 
inerrancy  of  every  line  of  Scripture  in  violation  of  every  principle  of 
literary  expression  and  even  of  common  sense.  'My  heart,'  says 
Coleridge,  '  would  turn  away  with  angry  impatience  for  the  captious 


THEORIES  OF   INSPIRATION  125 

would  be  a  boon  if  some  less  ambiguous  word  could  be 
adopted.  In  these  shadows  of  words  used  iu  many  differ- 
ent senses  there  lurk  multitudes  of  errors  and  contro- 
versies. The  Alexandrian  Jews  and  the  Fathers  say  with 
one  voice  that  Holy  Scripture  is  '  inspired/  and  we  accept 
the  phrase  because  it  corresponds  with  oiu*  own  conviction 
that  the  Scriptures  as  a  whole  are  supreme  in  religious 
authority,  priceless  in  their  divine  revelation,  unique  in 
holy  influence,  the  choicest  outward  boon  which  God  has 
granted  to  mankind.  But  when  we  find  Philo  saying  that 
'  the  Holy  Word  bestows  the  gift  of  prophecy  upon  every 
notably  wise  man,'  ^  and  when  we  find  some  of  the  Fathers 
attributing  insph'ation  to  the  LXX  and  to  the  Sibyls  and 
to  Hystaspes,  their  use  of  the  phrase  becomes  valueless 
for  any  purpose  of  help. 

These  ancient  authorities  are  often  quoted  as  though 
they  proved  that  the  post-Reformation  dogmas  of  the  in- 
fallibility of  the  Bible  had  always  been  the  belief  of  Chiis- 
tians.  "We  have  no  right  to  quote  them  for  this  purpose 
unless  we  quote  them  to  prove  the  infallibility  of  some 
spurious  and  even  valueless  writings  to  which  they  also 
attributed  a  Scriptural  authority.'^ 

9.  When  we  ask  our  divines  what  inspiration  means, 
we  are  disappointed  by  the  unanimity  with  which  they 

mortal  who  tho  moment  I  had  been  pouring  out  the  love  and  gladness 
of  my  soul  while  book  after  book  were  passing  my  memory  should 
ask  me  if  I  were  thinking  of  the  Book  of  Esthei-,  or  of  Ps.  xix.  6,  20, 
or  Ps.  cxxxvii.  9.' 

1  Quis  rcr.  div.  her.  52.  Ho  calls  Plato  'most  sacred'  {iepuTarog), 
and  even  claims  occasional  inspiration  for  himself.  De  Cherub.  9; 
De  Migr.  Ahr.  7 ;  Schiirer,  Gesch.  d.  jiid.  Volkes,  ii.  868 ;  Sanday,  p.  94. 

2  Any  reader  of  Clemens  Romanus  or  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas  will 
see  at  once  that  their  strong  phrases  about  inspiration  by  no  means 
exclude  a  very  free  handling  of  the  Old  Testament. 


126  THE   BIBLE 

refuse  to  help  us  by  auything  approacliing  to  a  definition. 
No  one  will  question  the  '  orthodoxy '  of  Hagenbach :  yet 
Hagenbaeh  wrote,  with  perfect  truth,  that  '  the  Bible  is  a 
book  which  with  all  its  divinity  is  still  written  by  human 
hands  for  human  beings,  for  a  human  eye,  a  human  heart, 
a  human  understanding ;  a  book  which,  though  written  for 
all  times,  still  refers  to  certain  times  and  occasions,  and 
must  from  these  given  times  and  occasions  be  interpreted.' 

'  The  Bible,'  says  Dr.  Pope,  '  is  a  divine-human  collection 
of  books,  the  precise  relation  of  human  and  dixdne  in  which 
is  a  problem  which  has  engaged  much  attention,  and  has 
not  yet  been  adequately  solved.  We  have  to  construct 
our  theory  from  the  facts,  and  our  theory  must  face  those 
indisputable  facts  as  it  finds  them.'  ^ 

The  Ai'chbishop  of  Canterbm-y,  in  his  essay  on  'The 
Education  of  the  World,'  says :  '  If  geology  proves  to  us 
that  we  must  not  interpret  the  first  chapters  of  Genesis 
literally;  if  historical  investigations  shall  teach  us  that 
inspiration— however  it  may  protect  doctrine— j^et  was  not 
empowered  to  protect  the  narrative  of  the  inspired  writers 
from  occasional  inaccuracies;  if  careful  criticism  shall 
prove  that  there  have  been  occasionally  interpolations  and 
forgeries  in  that  Book  as  in  many  others,  the  result  should 
still  be  welcome.  The  substance  of  the  teaching  which  we 
derive  from  the  Bible  is  not  really  affected  by  anything 
of  this  sort.' 

Dean  Bagot,  in  a  little  book  on  the  '■  Inspiration  of  Scrip- 
ture '  (1878),  written  mainly  to  support  the  old  views,  says : 
'There  are  seven  gateways  through  which  the  material 
which  the  Bible  contains  has  come— Observation  (as  in 
John  xix.  34,  1  John  i.  1,  3) ;  Information  (Luke  i.  1,  2) ; 
Compilation  (as  in  the  Old  Testament  historic  books) ; 
1  Comp.  Thcol.  i.  175,  191. 


DIVINE  AND   HUMAN  127 

Meditation  (as  in  Psalms  v.,  xix.  &c.) ;  Imagination  (as  in 
the  Psalms  and  Isaiah) ;  Ai-gumentation  (as  in  the  Epistles 
of  St.  Paul  and  Revelation).'  He  explains  the  occurrence 
in  the  Bible  of  objectionable  sentiments,  as  in  the  Impre- 
catory Psalms,  to  '  the  outpouring  of  the  sinful  nature  and 
carnal  minds  of  those  who  uttered  them.' 

10.  This  being  so,  it  is  clear  that  from  the  word  '  inspira- 
tion '  no  inflexible  dogma  can  be  extorted.  It  cannot  be 
made  to  mean  the  same  thing  as  supernatural  perfection. 
It  is  an  indeterminate  symbol  used  by  different  men  in 
different  senses,  which  none  of  them  will  define. 

11.  With  the  results  at  which  we  have  thus  arrived  ac- 
cord the  dictates  of  reason,  which  Tertidlian  calls  in  itself 
'  a  divine  thing.'  Is  it  not  wi'ong  that  millions  should  be 
asked  to  accept  as  a  direct  transcript  from  Di\4ne  dic- 
tation books  which,  like  those  of  the  Apocrypha,  abound 
in  false  history  and  dubious  morals ;  books  of  doubtful 
authorship  and  secondary  authority ;  books  which,  like 
Canticles  and  Esther,  do  not  once  mention  the  name  of 
God,  and  were  only  admitted  into  the  Old  Testament 
Canon  after  serious  hesitation ;  passages  which  are  com- 
pletely mistranslated  or  which  convey  to  modern  ears  a 
sense  wholly  unlike  that  of  the  original ;  passages  which 
were  once  universally  accepted  as  genuine  Scripture,  but 
which  are  now  deleted  as  the  glosses,  interpolations,  and 
additions  of  unauthorised  copjdsts  ? 

12.  If  it  be  asked,  How,  then,  are  we  to  know  what  is 
the  Word  of  God  contained  in  Scripture  ?  or  if  it  be  argued 
that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  disintegrate  the  word  of  God 
from  the  word  of  man,  the  answer  is  that  this  is  exactly 
what  Christians  have  already  had  to  do  again  and  again. 
They  have  been  thrown,  just  as  the  Jews  were,  on  the 
ordinary  means  of  criticism  and  spiritual  discernment  to 


128  THE  BIBLE 

discover  what  entire  books  did,  and  what  did  not,  deserve 
the  title  of  Canonical ;  and  their  decision  has  repeatedly 
shown  itself  to  be  fallible.^  To  this  day  the  millions  of 
the  Roman  Church  accept,  as  canonical,  books  of  the 
Apocrypha,  some  of  which  he  far  below  the  level  of  many 
writings  both  heathen  and  Christian.  For  some  centuries 
books  were  admitted  into  the  Canon  which  are  now  ex- 
cluded from  it ;  or  books  excluded  from  it  which  are  now 
admitted  to  belong  to  it.  The  question  '  How,  then,  are 
we  to  recognise  the  Word  of  God  ? '  is  an  entii'ely  faithless 
one.  We  recognise  it  precisely  as  the  Christian  Chui'ch 
has  always  done.  All  Christians  have  set  aside  large  sec- 
tions of  the  Old  Testament  as  belonging  to  an  abrogated 
dispensation.  They  even  treat  some  passages  of  the  New 
Testament  as  not  binding  upon  them  in  the  letter.  They 
set  aside  no  small  part  of  Scripture  as  having  been  relative 
and  transient.  They  recognise  that  the  Tabernacle  was  a 
glorious  symbol,  but  do  not  find  anything  which  specially 
reaches  them  in  long  chapters  about  its  upholstery  and 
joinery,  'its  boxes  and  tables,  and  rings  and  lamps,  and 
loops  and  bowls,  and  curtains  and  candlesticks,  and  ram 

1  'You  must  first  ascertain  the  historical  proof  of  books  of  Holy 
Scripture  by  the  ordinary  methods  of  criticism  before  any  question 
of  their  inspiration  can  ever  arise.'  'That  is  not  an  act  of  religion,' 
says  Whichcote,  '  which  is  not  an  act  of  the  understanding :  for  that 
is  not  a  religious  act  which  is  not  human ; '  and  again,  *  They  are 
greatly  mistaken  who  in  religion  oppose  points  of  reason  and  matters 
of  faith :  as  if  nature  went  one  way  and  the  author  of  nature  went 
another.'  See  Bishop  Westcott's  Bel  TJionght  in  the  West,  pp.  362- 
397.  Whichcote  also  says,  *  Men  have  an  itch  rather  to  make  reli- 
gion than  to  use  it ; '  and  '  We  are  more  concerned  for  that  which  is 
our  own  in  religion  than  for  that  which  is  God's.'  He  hated  intole- 
rance, and  said,  'I  do  believe  that  the  destroying  this  spirit  of  perse- 
cution out  of  the  Church  is  a  piece  of  the  reformation  which  God 
aims  at.' 


'THE  WORD   OF   GOD'  129 

skins  and  badgers'  skins,  and  pans  and  shovels,  and 
basins  and  clothes'— quite  irrespective  of  the  question 
whether  they  emanated  from  Moses,  or  whether,  as  many 
critics  suppose,  they  are  not  much  older  than  the  era  of 
the  Exile.  In  spite  of  the  Council  of  Jerusalem  which 
claimed  the  direction  of  the  Holy  Spirit  they  do  not  abstain 
from  blood,  or  from  things  strangled.  In  spite  of  8t. 
James  they  do  not  anoint  the  sick  with  oil.  If  they  were 
not  constantly  falling  into  the  error  of  forgetting  that 
Christ  is '  alive  for  evermore  '—if  they  believed  His  promise 
that  the  Spirit  should  lead  them  into  all  essential  truth, 
they  would  not  try  to  dethrone  Him  and  set  up  a  book  in 
His  place.  Is  it  indeed  the  case  that  we  have  nothing  to 
guide  us  with  certainty  about  the  way  of  salvation  unless 
we  put  a  genealogy  of  Chronicles  or  a  chapter  of  Numbers 
or  Esther  on  the  same  level  as  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  ? 
Did  not  St.  John  teU  us  to  try  the  Spirits  ?  ^  Did  not  St. 
Paul  say,  '  Prove  all  things :  hold  fast  that  which  is 
good '  ?  -  Did  not  our  Lord  Himself  ask,  '  Why  even  of 
your  own  selves  judge  j''e  not  what  is  right ? ' ^  'To  those 
who  follow  their  reason  in  the  interpretation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures,' said  Lord  Falkland, '  God  will  either  give  His  grace, 
or  assistance  to  find  the  truth,  or  His  pardon  if  they  miss 
it.'  '  If  after  using  diligence  to  find  truths  we  fall  into 
error,'  said  ChUliugworth,  '  where  the  Scriptures  are  not 
plain  there  is  no  danger  in  it.  They  that  err  and  they 
that  do  not  err  shall  both  be  saved.'  '  God,'  says  Erskine 
of  Linlathen,  'judges  that  He  may  teach,  not  teaches  that 
He  may  judge.'  Have  we  no  reason  lighted  by  God  and 
lighting  to  God,  res  iUumiuafa,  ilhoiunans—IlQiiSon  which 
is  a  daughter  of  Eternity,  and  therefore  before  Antiquity, 

1  1  Jokn  iv.  1.  2  1  Thess.  v.  21. 

s  Luke  xii.  57. 


130  THE  BIBLE 

which  is  the  daughter  of  Time  ?  Could  not  even  a  heathen 
say  with  truth,  Est  Dens  in  nobis,  agitante  calescimus  illo?  ^ 
Have  we  within  us  no  voice  of  conscience, '  that  aboriginal 
vicar  of  Christ,  a  prophet  in  its  informations,  a  monarch 
in  its  peremptoriness,  a  priest  in  its  sanctions  and 
anathemas '  ?  Has  the  Spirit  of  God  abdicated  His  office 
since  the  days  of  St.  John,  or  at  any  rate  since  the  days  of 
St.  Augustine  ?  Have  we  ceased  to  believe  in  the  Holy 
Ghost  ?  Is  it  not  enough  that  God's  word  to  us  is  the  in- 
ward teaching  of  Him  who  is  the  Word  of  God  ?  Do  we 
or  do  we  not  believe  that  there  is  a  spirit  in  man,  and  the 
inspiration  of  the  Almighty  giveth  them  understanding  ?  ^ 
Were  St.  Irenaeus  and  St.  Augustine  wrong  when  they 
spoke  of  those  who  '  without  paper  and  ink  have  salvation 
written  on  their  hearts  by  the  Spirit '  ?  If  so,  was  St.  Paul 
wrong  when  he  spoke  of  the  invisible  things  of  God  being 
clearly  manifested  by  the  things  that  are  seen ;  and  of  the 
Gentiles  as  having  the  law  wi'itten  on  their  hearts,  and 
knowing  God,  and  the  judgment  of  God?  and  was  St. 
Peter  wrong  in  saying  that  God  had  in  every  nation  them 
that  were  acceptable  to  Him  because  they  fear  Him  and 
do  righteousness  ?  Is  it  not  a  plain  and  simple  rule  that 
anything  in  the  Bible  which  teaches,  or  is  misinterpreted 
to  teach,  anything  which  is  not  in  accordance  with  the 
love,  the  gentleness,  the  truthfulness,  the  purity  of  Christ's 
Gospel,  is  not  God's  word  to  us,  however  clearly  it  stands 
on  the  page  of  Scripture?  And  need  we  fear  lest  we 
should  be  led  astray  in  anything  essential  by  the  light 
from  heaven  ?  There  is  no  need  for  such  fears.  *  To  the 
law  and  to  the  testimony:  if  they  speak  not  according 
to  this  word,  it  is  because  there  is  no  Hglit  in  them.'^ 
'Where  the  doctrine  is  necessary  and  important,'  says 
1  Ovid,  Fasti,  vi.  6.  ^  job  xxxii.  8.  3  Is.  viii.  20. 


REASON  AND   CONSCIENCE  131 

Whichcote,  'the  Scripture  is  clear  and  full.'  And  if  the 
Scripture  is  sometimes  ambiguous,  Locke  has  told  us  with 
his  serene  wisdom  that '  he  who  makes  use  of  the  light  and 
faculties  which  God  hath  given  liim,  and  seeks  sincerely  to 
discover  truth  by  those  helps  and  abilities,  will  not  miss 
the  reward  of  truth.  He  that  doeth  otherwise  transgresses 
against  his  own  light.' 

13.  God  everlastingly  reveals  Himself  to  earnest  souls.^ 
'  It  is,'  says  Mr.  Ruskin,  '  a  grave  heresy  (or  wilful  source 
of  division)  to  call  any  book,  or  collection  of  books,  the 
Word  of  God.  By  that  Word,  or  Voice,  or  Breath,  or 
Spirit,  the  heaven  and  earth  and  all  the  host  of  men  were 
made,  and  in  it  they  exist.  It  is  your  life  and  speaks  to 
you  always  as  long  as  you  live  nobly ;  dies  out  of  you  as 
you  refuse  to  obey  it ;  leaves  you  to  hear  and  be  slain  by 
the  word  of  an  evil  spirit  instead  of  it.  It  may  come  to 
you  in  books,  come  to  you  in  clouds,  come  to  you  in  the 
voice  of  men,  come  to  you  in  the  stillness  of  deserts.  You 
must  be  strong  in  evil  if  you  have  quenched  it  wholly,  very 
desolate  in  this  Christian  land  if  you  have  never  heard  it 
at  aU.'  - 

The  Rabbis  were  right  in  the  Haggadah,  which  told  that 
the  voice  of  God  reached  the  people  of  Israel,  but  they 
could  not  find  exactly  whence  it  came  by  turning  either  to 
the  north  or  south,  or  east  or  west,  or  to  the  depths  of  the 
earth.  The  voice  of  God  speaks  to  us  out  of  Holy  Writ, 
far  more  intensely  than  out  of  any  form  of  human  speech, 

^  When  Melanchthon  asked  Luther  the  meaning  of  the  prophetic 
formula  'Thus  saith  the  Lord,'  Luther  answered  that  'because  the 
Prophets  were  holy  and  serious  people,  therefore  God  spoke  ynth 
them  in  their  consciences,  which  the  Prophets  held  as  sure  and  cer- 
tain revelations.'     Table  Talk,  549  (Sanday,  Oracles  of  God,  p.  xii.). 

2  Fors  Clavigcro. 


132  THE  BIBLE 

and,  if  only  we  have  the  courage  to  be  sincere,  it  will 
always  speak  dii-ectly  and  unmistakably  to  our  inmost 
hearts  and  consciences.  We  shall  hear  it  each  according 
to  our  capacity  and  our  power  to  receive  it,  and  we  shall 
hear  it  all  the  more  sui'ely  in  exact  proportion  to  the 
measui'e  in  which  we  have  arrived  at '  truth  in  the  inward 
parts.' 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  HIGHER  CRITICISM. 

'True  faith  and  reason  are  the  soul's  tuvo  eyes.'— Quarles. 

I  WILL  pause  here  to  say  a  few  words  about  what  is  known 
as  *  the  Higher  Criticism/  wliich  has  caused  such  needless 
alarm,  and  of  which  even  the  most  certain  results— such 
as  the  composite  character  of  the  Pentateuch,  and  the  late 
origin  of  the  Book  of  Daniel  in  its  present  form— are 
still  resisted,  with  bitter  attacks  on  those  who  feel  that 
by  refusing  to  accept  its  main  conclusions  they  would  be 
fighting  against  God  and  ojffering  to  Him  the  unclean  sac- 
rifice of  a  lie. 

1.  The  'Higher'  criticism  is  not,  as  many  imagine,  an 
aiTOgant  and  self-laudatory  title.^  It  merely  means  the 
criticism  which  is  not  purely  linguistic  or  philological,  but 
also  takes  into  account  the  discoveries  of  history  and  ar- 
chaeology, the  teachings  of  comparative  religion,  and  the 

1  The  name  was  invented  by  Eichhom  when  the  researches  of 
many  such  scholars  as  Morinus,  "Walton,  R.  Simon,  Kennicott,  Mill, 
Bentley,  Griesbach,  &c.,  had  made  textual  criticism  the  almost  ex- 
clusive method.  The  term  merely  implies  that  'the  study  of  the 
contents  of  a  book  is  a  higher  study  than  that  of  the  words  in  which 
the  contents  are  expressed'  (Dr.  Cave,  TJie  Battle  of  the  Standpoints, 
p.  8). 

133 


134  THE  BIBLE 

consideration  of  the  ordinary  laws  of  evidence,  of  docu- 
mentary transmission,  of  psychology,  and  of  human 
literature.^ 

2.  The  arguments  on  which  the  main  conclusions  of  the 
Higher  Criticism  are  based  are  so  strong  that,  as  a  simple 
matter  of  fact,  they  have  convinced  nearly  all  the  leading 
theologians  of  Germany.  I  could  not  refuse  to  recognise 
their  cogency  without  the  wilful  abnegation  of  the  divin- 
est  of  our  natural  prerogatives.  No  consensus  of  popular 
opinion  can  have  the  smallest  weight  against  the  truths 
which  the  heaven-directed  advance  of  knowledge  reveals. 
This  has  ever  been  the  view  of  our  soundest  and  most  or- 
thodox divines. 

'  That  authority  of  men  should  prevail  with  men,'  says 
Hooker,  '  either  against  or  above  Reason,  is  no  part  of  our 
belief.  Companies  of  learned  men,  be  they  never  so  great 
and  reverend,  are  to  yield  unto  Reason.'  - 

3.  Let  us  recapitulate  a  few  obvious  and  undeniable 
facts.     No  one  will  deny 

(a)  That  to  millions  of  mankind  the  Bible  never  has 
been  nor  can  be  known  except  in  translations. 

(b)  That,  from  the  natm'e  of  things,  no  translation  can 
be  perfect,  because  language,  with  all  its  subtle  mystery, 
is  but  an  imperfect  vehicle  of  thought,  and  the  different 
connotation  of  words  in  different  languages  renders  it  im- 
possible to  secure  the  minutely  exact  transfusion  of  thought 
from  one  tongue  into  another. 

(c)  That,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  not  a  single  trans- 

1  '  The  Higher  Criticism  is  but  a  name  for  scientific  scholarship 
scientifically  used.  If  the  Scriptures  are  fit  subjects  for  scholarship, 
then  the  more  scientific  the  scholarship  the  greater  its  use  in  the  field 
of  Scripture.' — Dr.  Fairbairn. 

2  Ecclesiastical  PoUtij,  Book  II.  ch.  vii.  6. 


ELEMENTS   OF   UNCERTAINTY  135 

lation  of  the  Scriptures  which  does  not  contain  errors. 
The  Septuagint,  the  Vulgate,  Luther's  Bible,  our  Author- 
ised Version,  the  Douai  Bible,  and  every  other  known 
translation  contains  grave  and  numerous  errors  of  trans- 
lation. ^  Our  Revised  Version,  which  has  utilised  the 
knowledge  and  research  of  all  the  ages,  is  probably  the 
most  correct  translation  of  the  Bible  in  existence,  yet  even 
oiir  Revised  Version  is  by  no  means  exempt  from  imper- 
fections. Thousands  of  years  ago  it  had  been  recognised 
that  'the  same  things  uttered  in  Hebrew  and  translated 
into  another  tongue  have  not  the  same  force  in  them ;  and 
not  only  these  things,  but  the  law  itself  and  the  prophets, 
and  the  rest  of  the  books,  have  no  small  difference  when 
they  are  spoken  in  their  own  language.'  - 

{d)  Alike  in  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament  there  are 
thousands  of  various  readings ;  important  variations  occur 
in  the  oldest  MSS.  and  versions;  in  some  books  of  the 
Sacred  Writings  the  genuine  text  is  uncertain,  inaccurate, 
interpolated,  and  in  a  few  verses  absolutely  irrecoverable.' 

(e)  When  wc  have  obtained  the  best  text  at  our  disposal, 
'the  form  in  which  the  revelation  has  come  down  to  us— 
what  seem  gaps  on  the  one  hand  and  repetitions  on  the 

^  Consider  even  the  theological  importance  of  the  inaccurate  ren- 
derings in  our  Authorised  Version  in  Matt.  vi.  13,  Mark  vii.  19,  John  x. 
16,  xiii.  10,  Rom.  iii,  25,  xii.  16,  Gal.  ii.  16,  Eph.  iv.  32,  Phil.  ii.  6,  Col. 
ii.  23,  Jas.  ii.  14,  1  Tim.  vi.  10,  2  Tim.  ii.  26,  iii.  16,  iv.  14,  Heb.  i.  1, 
Judo  22,  and  many  more  passages.  Our  O.T.  version  of  Ex.  xxxiv. 
33,  Dent,  xxxiii.  6,  Is.  vi.  13,  xviii.  2,  xxi.  7,  xxx.  7,  Dan.  vii.  9,  and 
in  many  passages  of  the  Psalms  is  obscured  by  errors.  The  meaning 
of  the  magnificent  passage  Is.  ix.  1-5,  -which  forms  our  First  Lesson 
for  Christmas  Day,  is  in  our  A.V.  almost  reversed. 

2  Prologue  to  Ecclesiasticus. 

3  As  single  specimens  take  the  doubt  as  to  the  reading  fiovoyevijc 
Gedf  in  John  i.  18. 


136  THE  BIBLE 

other— shows  that  here  we  have  a  human  literature,  em- 
bodying a  divine  message  not  to  be  discerned  at  a  glance, 
but  which  ))ial-es  us  think,  compare,  examine,  weigh,  judge.' 

(/)  The  history  of  interpretation  shows  how  many 
meanings  may  be  attached  even  to  the  simplest  passages. 

{g)  Hence  '  he  who  holds  that  these  books  are  indeed  the 
Word  of  God  is  compelled  to  examine  into  their  form  and 
structure ;  to  inquire  in  what  sense,  to  what  degree,  God 
may  be  said  to  speak,  e.g.  in  the  Book  of  Job,  in  the  specu- 
lations of  Ecclesiastes,  in  the  visions  of  the  Apocalypse. 
He  is  compelled  by  the  very  variety  of  form,  and  complex- 
ity of  the  questions  raised,  to  think  and  to  distinguish, 
if  he  would  understand  and  rightly  receive  the  divine 
message.' 

(/«)  'The  question  as  to  the  nature  of  inspii-ation  is 
raised  by  the  acknowledged  fact  of  the  progressive  character 
of  the  di\dne  revelation  herein  contained.  The  unity  of 
the  Bible  is  not  mechanical,  but  organic— represented  by 
the  growth  and  development  of  the  plant,  not  by  the  erec- 
tion of  a  monolith.'  ^ 

4.  These  truths  are  so  obvious  that  every  candid  man 
is  compelled  to  admit  them.  Mr.  Gladstone  has  written 
much  and  earnestly  on  the  gi'andeur  and  inestimable 
worth  of  Holy  Writ.  Yet,  as  an  honest  inquirer,  he  ad- 
mits in  the  sacred  writers, 

i.  Imperfect  comprehension  of  that  which  was  divinely 
communicated. 

ii.  Imperfect  expression  of  what  had  once  been  compre- 
hended. 

iii.  Lapses  of  memory  in  oral  transmission. 

iv.  Errors  of  copyists  in  written  transmission. 

V.  Changes  with  the  lapse  of  time  in  the  sense  of  words. 
1  Professor  Davison. 


VARIATIONS   IN  SCRIPTURE  137 

vi.  Variations  arising  from  renderings  into  different 
tongues. 

vii.  Three  variant  chronologies  of  the  Old  Testament  (the 
Hebrew,  the  Septuagint,  and  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch). 

viii.  The  inspired  writers  of  the  New  Testament  varied 
in  the  text  they  used  for  citations  from  the  Old  Testament, 
and  did  not  regard  either  the  Hebrew  or  the  Greek  as  of 
exclusive  authority.^ 

5.  Is  it  not,  then,  clear  that  we  must  inquire  into  the 
structure  and  peculiarities  of  the  Sacred  Books  ?  that  we 
should  be  acting  with  craven  unbelief  if  we  refrained  from 
doing  so  ?  Those  inquiries  have  convinced  every  profound 
critic  and  theologian  of  any  eminence  that  some  of  the 
books  of  Scripture  are  an  amalgam  of  two  or  three  books, 
and  that  other  books  have  been  compiled  from  various 
sources,  and  edited  and  re-edited  by  later  hands.  There 
is  nothing  whatever  in  such  conclusions  to  shake  even  the 
outermost  fringe  of  the  hem  of  our  religious  faith ;  for  the 
Scripture  notion  of  revelation  is  a  union  of  three  elements 
—faith  in  the  world  of  phenomena ;  God-given  ideas  in  the 
world  of  tliought ;  and  a  verifying  faculty  bestowed  on  the 
divinely-touched  soul.^ 

6.  And  if  we  have  arrived  at  such  conclusions  about  the 
composite  books  of  Scripture,  it  is  our  duty  not  to  conceal 
them.     '  There  is  a  duty  to  speak  the  truth  as  well  as  to 

1  Also,  on  p.  262  of  his  book,  Mr.  Gladstone  says  that  detriment 
ensues  when  we  erect  into  dogmatic  truth  such  propositions  as : 
'  1.  That  the  material  volume  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  .  .  .  with  every 
fact  and  sentiment  it  contains,  must  be  received  under  the  same 
materialised  conception  as  that  Tinder  which  Mahometans  are  sup- 
posed to  believe  the  Koran,  and  held  absolutely  true.  2.  That  there 
is  no  progression  or  distinction  in  the  inspiration  to  which  it  is  to  be 
referred.' 

2  Rev.  E.  "White,  Inspiration,  a  Clerical  Symposium,  p.  149. 


138  THE  BIBLE 

withhold  it.  The  voice  of  a  majority  of  clergy  throughout 
the  world,  the  half-sceptical,  half-conservative  instinct  of 
many  laymen,  perhaps  also  individual  interest,  are  in  favour 
of  the  latter  course ;  while  a  higher  expediency  pleads  that 
honesty  is  the  best  policy,  and  that  truth  alone  makes  f  ree.'^ 

7.  Upon  the  Higher  Criticism  is  naturally  based  a  prin- 
ciple of  modern  exegesis  which  may  now  be  regarded  as 
estabhshed— namely,  that  we  must  interpret  the  words  of 
every  Scriptural  writer  according  to  the  language,  tone  of 
thought,  and  literary  habits  of  the  times  in  which  he  lived. 
This  principle  is  more  than  two  thousand  years  old.  Even 
the  Rabbis,  woodenly  literal  as  was  much  of  their  exegesis, 
and  slavish  as  were  their  theories  of  inspiration,  yet  laid 
down  the  wise  rule  that  '  the  law  speaks  in  the  tongue  of 
the  sons  of  men.' 

*  The  Holy  Spirit  inspires  and  guides,'  says  an  American 
professor,^  'but  does  not  destroy  or  diminish  personal 
peculiarities,  not  always  even  personal  ignorance.' 

8.  But  once  more  I  must  state  with  the  utmost  earnest- 
ness that  by  interpreting  the  Scriptures  on  such  principles 
we  do  not  touch  one  single  truth  of  the  Christian  creed ; 
nay,  by  removing  enormous  difficulties  from  the  path  of 
sound  belief,  we  help  to  establish  the  eternal  verities  of  our 
religion  upon  a  surer  foundation. 

9.  There  is,  however,  one  consideration  which  inspires 
most  alarm  into  the  minds  of  humble  and  earnest  Chi*is- 
tians.  They  fear  lest  any  discoveries  respecting  the  origin 
and  characteristics  of  the  Old  Testament  books  should  in 
the  smallest  degree  collide  with  the  authority,  or  the 
recorded  utterances,  of  our  blessed  Lord.  I  have  already 
touched  on  this  subject,  and  it  has  been  so  clearly  treated 

1  Dr.  Jowett. 

2  Professor  Lemuel  S.  Potem. 


OUR  LORD'S  ALLUSIONS  139 

by  some  recent  writers  that  I  cannot  do  better  than  quote 
the  words  of  Professor  Driver  respecting  this  important 
question  also. 

'  That  our  Lord  appealed  to  the  Old  Testament  as  the 
record  of  a  revelation  in  the  past  and  as  pointing  forward 
to  Himself  is  undoubted;  but  these  aspects  of  the  Old 
Testament  are  perfectly  consistent  with  a  critical  view  of 
its  structure  and  growth.  That  our  Lord  in  so  appealing 
to  it  designed  to  pronounce  a  verdict  on  the  authorship 
and  age  of  its  different  parts,  and  to  foreclose  all  future 
inquiry  into  these  subjects,  is  an  assumption  for  which  no 
sufficient  ground  can  be  found.  .  .  .  He  accepted  as  the 
basis  of  His  teaching  the  opinions  respecting  the  Old 
Testament  current  around  Him ;  He  assumed,  in  His  allu- 
sions to  it,  the  premises  which  His  opponents  recognised, 
and  which  could  not  have  been  questioned  (even  had  it 
been  necessary  to  question  them)  without  raising  issues  for 
which  the  time  was  not  yet  ripe,  and  which,  had  they  been 
raised,  would  have  interfered  seriously  with  the  paramount 
purpose  of  His  life.' 

Fm-ther,  it  should  not  be  overlooked  that  by  the  very 
fact  of  taking  our  natiu'e  upon  Him  Christ  voluntarily 
submitted  Himself  to  human  limitations.  To  become  a 
man  '  He  emptied  Himself  of  His  glory,'  and  this  exinani- 
tion  involved  the  necessity  for  speaking  as  a  man  to  men. 
As  far  back  as  the  second  century,  St.  Irenaeus,  taking  this 
into  account,  and  the  saying  of  Christ  that  as  man  there 
was  something  which  even  '  the  Son '  did  not  know,  ad- 
mitted that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  the  quiescence  {rb 
7]ovxd^eci')  of  the  Divine  Word.^ 

10.  All  that  our  Lord  said  about  the  Prophets  has  been 
abundantly  verified.  There  was  in  them  an  intensity  of 
1  Iren.  c.  Bar.  iii.  19.  3;   Sanday,  Oracles  of  God,  xiv. 


140  THE  BIBLE 

confidence,  a  buoyancy  of  hope,  a  depth  of  penitence,  which 
have  made  them  the  most  natural  and  fitting  interpreters 
of  the  spiritual  emotions  of  the  godliest  souls  in  all  ages ; 
but  there  is  also  '  a  tone  as  of  imperfect  music,  a  looking 
forward  and  a  longing  for  the  fuller  revelation  of  the  pur- 
poses of  God,  a  yearning  for  the  time  when  a  life  should 
be  lived  upon  earth  in  complete  accord  with  His  will/ 
Their  convictions  of  the  divine  future  fulfilment  of  this 
their  hope  centre  in  their  inspired  prophecy  of  Him  who 
should  hereafter  be  '  a  light  to  hghten  the  Gentiles,  and  the 
glory  of  God's  people  Israel.'  The  great  Messianic  hope 
and  prediction,  in  one  form  or  another,  runs  through  them 
all ;  and  '  those  who  have  felt  this  will  not  need  any  limp- 
ing logic  or  illusory  indications  to  prove  to  them  the  in- 
spiration of  the  book  which  records  it.' 

Let  us,  then,  bear  in  mind  the  warning  of  Hooker,  that 
'  Whatsoever  is  spoken  of  God,  or  things  appertaining  to 
God,  otherwise  than  the  truth  is,  though  it  seem  an 
honoiu',  it  is  an  injury,'  And  of  three  things  the  reader 
may  be  sure— namely,  that 

i.  Nothing  can  prevent  the  acceptance  of  the  general 
principles  of  criticism,  because  nothing  can  finally  retard 
the  linear  progress  of  truth  and  knowledge. 

ii.  The  things  which  cannot  be  shaken  will  remain. 

iii.  It  is  a  dishonourable  and  faithless  position  to  be  the 
last  defenders  of  traditional  prejudices  which  have  been 
disproved  by  thorough  and  fearless  investigation. 

I  would  add  but  one  further  warning.  The  wisest  ob- 
servers are  aware  that  there  is  a  tendency  in  advancing 
years  to  arrest  our  progress  and  stereotype  our  opinions. 
It  does  not  foUow  that  special  theological  views  are  true 
because  they  are  separable  accretions  to  a  general  system 
of  the  truth  of  which  we  are  convinced.  How  wise  was 
the  resolution  of  Jonathan  Edwards !     '  Old  men,'  he  said, 


SPEAKING   THE  TRUTH  141 

'have  seldom  any  advantage  of  new  discoveries,  because 
they  are  beside  a  way  of  thinking  they  have  been  long 
used  to.  Resolved  therefore,  if  ever  I  live  to  years,  that 
I  will  be  impartial  to  hear  the  reasons  of  all  pretended  dis- 
coveries, and  receive  them,  if  rational,  how  long  soever  I 
have  been  used  to  another  way  of  thinking.' 

Nothing  will  be  more  likely  to  shake  the  faith  of  the 
rising  generation  than  that  we  should  mingle  our  religious 
teaching  with  views  which  the  progi'ess  of  knowledge— 
itself  a  part  of  the  slow  revelation  of  God— has  rendered 
untenable.  '  You  must  teach  your  children  truth  in  part,' 
said  the  late  Bishop  Phillips  Brooks, '  but  the  partial  truth 
you  teach  them  must  be  true,  and  so  have  in  it  the  essen- 
tial completeness  of  all  truth,  or  else  they  will  outgrow  it 
and  cast  it  off,  as  hundreds  of  growing  children  do  leave 
behind  the  whole  well-meant  but  narrowly  conceived  re- 
ligion of  then*  nurseries,  as  they  pass  out  of  the  nursery 
door  into  the  world.' 

I  know  that  it  will  not  be  easy  for  some  readers  to  aban- 
don their  former  views  on  these  subjects.  Let  them,  how- 
ever, be  watchful  against  the  subtle  arrogance  which  may, 
as  a  result  of  the  immobility  of  their  own  cou\dctions, 
tempt  them  to  bring  'railing  accusations'  against  their 
brethren.  Let  them  take  to  heart  the  warning  of  Scrip- 
ture that  'a  sluggard'  may  'be  wiser  in  his  own  conceit 
than  seven  men  who  can  render  a  reason.'  '  O  merciful 
God,'  exclaims  Hooker,  '  what  man's  wit  is  there  able  to 
sound  the  depths  of  those  dangerous  and  fearful  e\nls, 
whereinto  our  weak  and  impotent  nature  is  incUnable  to 
sink  itself,  rather  than  to  show  an  acknowledgment  of 
error  in  that  which  we  have  unadvisedly  taken  upon  us  to 
defend,  against  the  stream  as  it  were  of  a  contraiy  public 
resolution.'  ^ 

1  Hooker,  Ecd.  Pol.  Pref.  Lx.  1. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   BIBLE   CONTAINS   THE  WORD   OF   GOD. 

'  Seriptura  sacra  continet  omnia  quae  ad  salutem  sunt  necessaria.' 
-Art.  VI. 

The  Bible  as  a  whole  may  be  spoken  of  as  the  word  of 
God,  because  it  contains  words  and  messages  of  God  to 
the  human  soul;  but  it  is  not  in  its  whole  extent,  and 
throughout,  identical  with  the  Word  of  God. 

In  the  '  Treatise  of  the  Christian  Religion,'  by  the  Puritan 
scholar  Thomas  Cartwright  (1616),  occurs  the  question: 

'  How  may  these  books  be  discerned  to  bee  the  word  of 
God  1 '    The  answer  is  •. 

'  By  these  considerations  following— 

'First,  they  are  perfectly  holy  in  themselves  and  by 
themselves:  whereas  all  other  wi'itings  are  prophane, 
further  than  they  draw  holinesse  from  these,  which  is 
yet  never  such  but  that  their  holinesse  is  imperfect  and 
defective. 

'  Secondly,  they  are  perfectly  profitable  in  themselves  to 
instruct  unto  salvation.  .  .  . 

'  Thirdly,  there  is  a  perfect  concord  and  harmony  in  aU 
their  books.  .  .  . 

'  Fourthly,  -there  is  an  admirable  force  in  them  to  incline 
men's  hearts  from  vice  to  virtue.  .  .  . 

142 


ARGUMENTS   OF   CARTWRIGHT  143 

'  Fifthly,  in  great  plainness  and  easiness  of  style  there 
shineth  a  great  majesty  and  authority. 

*  Sixthly,  there  is  such  a  gracious  simphcity  in  the  writers 
of  these  books  that  they  neither  spare  themselves  nor  their 
friends. 

'  Lastly,  God's  own  spirit,  working  in  the  hearts  of  His 
children,  doth  assure  them  that  these  Scriptures  are  the 
word  of  God.' 

One  or  two  of  these  propositions  are  true  in  part ;  but 
others  are  irrelevant ;  others  exaggerated ;  others  contrary 
to  fact ;  and  others  tainted  by  a  fallacy  of  impossible  ex- 
tension—in other  words,  while  they  apply  to  the  Scriptures 
as  a  whole,  they  do  not  apply  to  their  entii'e  contents.  It 
is  not  true  that  there  is  a  perfect  haimony  and  concord  in 
all  books  of  Scripture,  for  as  we  have  seen  they  present 
wide  differences  of  standpoint.  It  is  not  true  that  their 
style  is  invariably  plain  and  easy ;  if  it  were,  they  would 
not  have  given  room  for  such  enormous  divergencies  of 
interpretation.  It  is  not  true  that  every  passage  of  Scrip- 
ture is  perfectly  holy  in  and  by  itself ;  stiU  less  true  that 
all  other  wi'itings  are  in  any  derogatory  sense  '  prophane.' 
It  is  historically  false  to  say  that  all  other  books  '  draw 
their  holiness  from  them/  and  spiritually  false  to  assert 
that  the  holiness  of  aU  other  books  is  imperfect  and  defec- 
tive. AU  truth  is  sacred,  and  aU  trath  comes  from  God. 
The  heathen  were  not  left  destitute  of  the  grace  of  God. 
To  assert  that  they  were  is  to  contradict  not  only  Solomon, 
St.  Peter,  and  St.  Paid,  but  even  Christ  Himself.  Christ 
found  in  the  Gentile  centurion  and  the  Syro-Phoenician 
mother  a  faith  which  He  had  not  found  in  Israel.  St. 
Peter  was  imtaught  his  old  narrow  particularism,  and 
learnt  that  '  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons :  but  in  every 
nation  he  that  feareth  God,  and  worketh  righteousness,  is 


144  THE  BIBLE 

accepted  of  Him.'  ^  St.  Paul  constantly  testifies  that  the 
heathen  knew  God,  and  the  judgment  of  God,  because 
that  •which  is  known  of  God  is  manifest  to  them,  for  God 
showed  it  unto  them.-  He  told  the  heathen  Athenians 
that  God  is  not  far  from  every  one  of  us,  and  he  quoted 
and  endorsed  the  opinion  of  the  pagan  poet  Ai'atus  that 
'  We  are  also  His  offspring.'  St.  Augustine  was  first  stirred 
to  nobler  efforts  by  reading  the  Hortensius  of  Cicero,  and 
when  heathen  wi'iters  express  the  same  truths  which  we 
find  in  Scripture  it  cannot  be  said  that,  so  far,  what  is 
holy  in  them  is  always  imperfect  and  defective. 

All  knowledge  is  not  couched  in  Moses'  law  .  .  . 
The  Gentiles  also  know  and  write,  and  teach 
To  admiration,  led  by  Nature's  light.  3 

Cartwi'ight's  other  reasons  express  the  glory  and  divine 
value  of  that  revelation  which  the  Bible  contains,  but  are 
quite  inadequate  to  support  the  proposition  that  the  Bible 
is  in  every  verse  the  word  of  God.  God's  Holy  Spirit, 
working  in  the  hearts  of  His  children,  does  indeed  bear 
witness  to  the  voice  of  that  Spirit ;  but  the  appeal  to  this 
subjective  witness  has  all  the  effect  of  'horrible  irony' 
when  it  is  used,  as  Cartwright  himself  used  it,  to  support 
what  is  false  and  evil.  For  instance,  he  defended,  as  the 
Church  of  Rome  still  defends,  the  execrable  doctrine  that 
it  is  lawful  to  torture  and  murder  people  because  of  their 
religious  opinions ;  and  he  adds  that  if  this  be  regarded  as 
'  extreame  and  bloodie '  he  is  '  glad  to  be  so  with  the  Holy 
Ghost ' !     Thus,  as  we  see  again  and  again,  '  the  attempt 

1  Acts  X.  35.     Compare  Is.  Ivii.  19 ;  Mai.  ii.  10. 

2  Acts  xiv.  17,  xvii.  26-28 ;  Rom.  i.  19,  20,  ii.  10,  11,  x.  12,  13 ; 
1  Cor.  xii.  13 ;  Gal.  iii.  28. 

3  Paradise  Regained,  iv. 


SCRIPTURE  TESTIMONY  145 

to  attach  a  name  of  supernatural  sanctity  to  the  entire 
contents  of  the  Bible  ends  in  the  degradation  of  that  name 
itself.'  1 

If  anybody  is  shocked  by  the  plain  statement  that  every 
word  of  Scripture  is  not  the  word  of  God,  it  can  only  be 
out  of  ignorance.  For  that  statement  is  in  exact  accord- 
ance with  the  teaching  both  of  Scripture  and  of  the 
Church. 

i.  This  \dew  accords  with  the  teaching  of  Scripture  itself. 
Everywhere  the  style  of  the  wiiters,  and  even  the  defects 
and  infii-mities  of  the  style ;  everywhere  the  individuaUty 
of  the  wi'iters,  and  often  even  the  human  weakness  which 
theii'  individuaUty  betrays— iu  many  places  the  marks  of 
human  passion  and  infirmity,  and  the  consciousness  that 
they  are  present— show  that,  though  these  holy  men  of 
old  spake,  indeed,  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost, 
yet  at  the  same  time  they  remain  liable  to  human  limi- 
tations. Of  many  passages  we  may  truly  say,  with 
Gregory  of  Nyssa,  that  '  if  the  corporeal  veil  of  speech  be 
removed,  that  which  remains  is  Lord,  and  life,  and  Spirit.'  - 
But  always  the  corporeal  veil  of  speech  is  there ;  and  if 
human  speech  be  but  an  asymptote  to  human  thought— if 
it  resemble  that  mathematical  line  which  continually  ap- 
proaches towards  the  edge  of  the  curve,  but  though  infi- 
nitely produced  yet  never  touches  it— how  can  human 
speech  be  a  perfect  vehicle  of  the  Di\'ine  thought  ?  That 
may  be  one  of  the  reasons  why  (as  ah*eady  pointed  out)  not 
once  tlirouglwut  the  New  Testament  is  the  Old  Testament  called 
'  the  Word  of  Qod; '  not  once  throughout  all  Scripture  is  the  Bible 
called  '  the  Word  of  God,'  though  the  phrase  itself  occurs  be- 
tween 300  and  400  times.  In  the  Old  Testament  '  the  word 
of  Jehovah '  is  always  applied  to  some  particular  prophetic 
1  Rev.  A.  Mackennal.  2  (jreg.  Nyss.  c.  Eunom.  vii. 

10 


146  THE   BIBLE 

message  or  messages,  which  in  their  collective  form  may 
be  called  (by  way  of  figure,  as  John  Damascene  says) 
'  oracles  of  God,'  because  they  contain  such  oracles.^  In 
the  New  Testament  the  facts  and  oral  preaching  of  the 
Gospel  are  called  '  the  word,'  ^  '  the  word  of  hearing,'  ^  <  of 
truth,'  *  '  of  salvation,'  ^ '  of  reconciliation,'  ^  '  of  grace,'  ^ '  of 
the  kingdom,'^  and  are  therefore  rightly  regarded  as  a 
word  or  message  of  God,  and  about  God ;  but  in  all  these 
instances  the  reference  is  not  to  ivritten  hoohs  at  all,  still  less 
to  the  entire  contents  of  sixty-six  written  books,  out  of 
which  some  twelve  or  more  were  only  with  hesitation 
admitted  as  Deutero-canonical.  Even  as  applied  to  the 
Gospel  message  the  phrase  is  used  in  a  secondary  sense. 
In  its  true  and  supreme  sense  the  title  '  the  Word  of  God ' 
is  applicable  to  Christ  and  to  Christ  alone.  Luther 
pointed  out  long  ago  that  'God  does  not  reveal  gram- 
matical vocables,  but  essential  things.  Thus  sun  and 
moon,  Peter  and  Paul,  thou  and  I,  are  nothing  but  words 
of  God.'    And  we  may,  with  Hartley  Coleridge, 

Believe  that  every  bird  that  sings, 
And  every  flower  that  stars  the  elastic  sod, 
And  every  breath  the  radiant  summer  brings 
To  the  pure  spirit,  is  a  word  of  God. 

But  Christ  alone  is  '  the  Word  of  God.' 

ii.  And  with  this  teaching  of  Scripture  agrees  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Universal  Church.  The  formal  identification  of 
the  Bible  in  its  whole  contents  with  the  very  Word  of  God 

1  Hos.  i.  1 ;  Mic.  i.  1 ;  Joel  i.  1 ;  Rom.  iii.  2. 

2  Luke  i.  2 ;  Acts  viii.  4.  3  i  Thess.  ii.  13 ;  Heb.  iv.  2. 
*  Eph.  i.  13.                5  Acts  xiii.  26.  «  2  Cor.  v.  19. 

7  Acts  XX.  32.  8   Matt.  xiii.  19. 


DOCTRINE   OF   THE   CHURCH  147 

is  neither  ancient  nor  catholic.  It  may  sometimes  seem 
to  be  implied  in  the  looser  rhetoric  of  the  Fathers,  but  is 
contrary  to  then*  deliberate  method  of  handling  Scripture, 
and  is  in  fact  an  error  of  yesterday. 

Perhaps  the  first  writer  who  rigorously  identified  Scrip- 
ture throughout  its  whole  extent  with  the  Word  of  God 
was  George  Major  in  his  book,  '  De  origine  et  auctoritate 
verbi  Dei,'  1550 ;  but,  as  Diestel  says,  '  Luther  never  feU 
into  the  error.  He  gives  to  "  the  word  of  God  "  a  narrower 
and  a  wider  sense  than  the  Scriptures.  It  is  to  him  the 
expression  of  the  Divine  WiU,  especially  on  its  religious 
side.' 

As  far  back  as  the  eighth  century  the  eminently  orthodox 
Father,  John  of  Damascus,  had  laid  down  the  rule  that 
'  We  apply  not  to  the  written  word  of  Scripture  the  title 
due  to  the  Incarnate  Son  of  God.' 

The  doctrine  of  the  Church  in  general  is,  and  always 
has  been,  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  of  England,  that 
'  Scripture  contains  the  word  of  God.'  It  was  only  to  men 
like  Calov  that  the  testimony  of  the  Holy  Spirit  became 
mainly  an  inward  assurance  that  their  own  private  opinions 
are  irrefragably  right !  The  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  was 
degi'aded  into  a  recalling  to  memory  of  proof-texts ;  and 
Scripture  was  declared  to  be  a  sort  of  oracular  teraph,  a 
self-efficacious  organism  endowed  with  the  inlierent  power 
of  radiating  infallible  theology !  The  repeated  comments 
of  Luther  and  Calvin,  in  spite  of  their  occasional  laxity  of 
popular  declamation,  show  that  they  would  have  repu- 
diated such  views.  '  It  was,'  it  has  been  said,  '  an  after- 
thought of  less  original  and  courageous  minds  to  make 
no  distinction  between  different  parts  of  the  Bible,  to 
regard  it  all  with  the  same  didl  and  superstitious  reve- 
rence, and  to  force  the  most  reluctant  facts  into  the  mould 


148  THE  BIBLE 

of  their  belief.'  Nor  were  these  extravagant  assertions  of 
Calov  and  others  allowed  to  pass  without  protest.  '  The 
external  word,'  said  Schwenkenf  eld,  *  is  the  human  voice, 
in  which  there  is  included  no  divine  virtue.'  'If  thou 
sayest  among  the  inexperienced,'  says  Weigel,  'that  the 
letter  is  God's  word,  thou  art  ...  a  deceiver.'  '  The  Scrip- 
ture is  not  called  divine  because  everything  contained  in 
it  should  be  imputed  to  a  special  revelation,'  said  the 
learned  Georg  Calixt  (1656) ;  and  this  view  was  also  main- 
tained by  divines  of  such  eminent  learning  and  holiness 
both  within  and  without  the  Enghsh  Church  as  Baxter, 
South,  and  Doddridge. 

To  assert  that  the  phrase  '  Scripture  containeth '  [com- 
pleditur)  instead  of  '  is '  (est)  the  Word  of  God  is  only  an 
accident  in  the  formularies  of  the  English  Church,  is  the 
reverse  of  fact ;  for  we  find  it  three  times  over. 

In  the  Sixth  Article  we  have : 

'Holy  Scripture  containeth  all  things  necessary  to  sal- 
vation.' 

In  the  Homilies : 

'  Unto  a  Chi'istian  man  there  can  be  nothing  more  neces- 
sary or  profitable  than  the  knowledge  of  Holy  Scripture, 
forasmuch  as  in  it  is  contained  God's  true  word.' 

And  in  the  services  for  the  ordering  of  priests  and 
bishops  we  have  the  question : 

'Are  you  persuaded  that  the  Holy  Scriptures  contain 
sufficiently  all  doctrine  required  of  necessity  for  eternal 
salvation  through  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  ? '  ^ 

1  The  older  confessions  of  the  Eeformed  Churches  deliberately 
used  the  same  word,  Conf.  Oal.  art.  5,  '  Complectens  .  .  .  quicquid 
requiratur;'  Conf.  Belg.  art.  7,  '•Credimus  Seripturas  .  .  .  omnem 
Dei  voluntatem  complecti.'  The  'Formula  Consensus  Helvetici' 
(drawn  up  by  F.  Turretin  in  1675)  did  indeed  say  'Scriptura  est 


DOCTRINE  OF  THE   CHURCH  149 

And  so  in  the  Shorter  Catechism  we  read  '  the  word  of 
God  which  is  contained  in  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament,  is  the  only  ride  to  direct  us  how  we  may- 
enjoy  and  glorify  Him.' 

Whether  then  by  providential  superintendency  or  by 
reasonable  knowledge,  the  Chui*ch  of  England  has  never 
pledged  her  children  to  maintain  that  every  word  of  Scrip- 
ture is  infallible  and  inerrant,  as  though  it  came  immedi- 
ately from  God  Himself, 

verbum  Dei,'  but  by  1729  it  was  ah-eady  rejected  and  forgotten. 
The  words  of  the  Helvetic  Confession  were  'Hebraicus  Vet.  Test, 
codex,  turn  quoad  consonas  turn  quoad  vocalia  sive  puncta  ipsa,  seu 
punctorum  saltern  potestatem,  et  turn  quoad  res,  turn  quoad  verba, 
de&TTvevoTOi.' 


CHAPTER  XI 


BIBLICAL  INFALLIBILITY. 


'Spiritus  Domini  replevit  orbem  terrarum.'— Wisd.  i.  7. 
'Lumen  supernum  nunquam  descendit  sine  indumento.'— Kab- 
balah. 

The  Bible  is  amply  sufficient  for  our  instruction  in  all 
those  truths  which  are  necessary  to  salvation.  Its  final 
teaching  is  our  surest  guide  to  all  holiness.  We  hear  the 
voice  of  God  breathing  through  it;  we  see  the  hand  of  God 
at  work  in  its  preservation  for  the  human  race.  The  Bible 
contains  the  historic  revelation  of  the  Eternal  Christ.  And 
in  the  Old  as  well  as  in  the  New  Testament  we  may  and 
do  find  the  promise  of  a  Redeemer,  and  of  His  good  will 
towards  us.  In  everything  wJiicJi  is  requisite  for  man^s  sal- 
vation, the  lessons  contained  in  Scrrptixre— with  the  co-or- 
dinate help  of  that  Spirit  hy  ivhom  its  writers  were  moved  to 
aid  us  in  our  discrimination— are  an  infallible  guide  to  us 
in  things  necessary.  This  we  hold  with  all  our  hearts, 
and  for  this  we  thank  God  continually.  But  this  is  wholly 
different  from  the  assertion  that  the  Bible  is  throughout 
and  in  all  respects  infallible  or  inerrant. 

Man  is  always  demanding  an  infallible  authority  on  all 
subjects ;  and  he  cannot  have  it.  God  has  granted  to  him 
a  lamp  unto  his  feet  and  a  light  unto  his  path,  bright 
enough  to  guide  him  to  eternal  blessedness.  He  has 
caused  a  pillar  of  fire  to  shed  its  gleam  through  the  mid- 
150 


WHAT  I^  THE  BIBLE?  151 

night  wliich  surrounds  him  and  to  lead  him  through  the 
wilderness.  But  as  regards  all  else  except  the  guidance  of 
his  journey  to  the  promised  land  the  pillar  of  fii-e  avails 
not.  The  darkness  is  still  darkness,  and  the  wilderness 
is  still  the  wilderness.  Every  Christian  may  learn  from 
the  Bible  the  sole  knowledge  wliich  is  infinitely  needful. 
Tliis  is  vouchsafed  to  him  from  above.  For  all  other 
knowledge  he  is  left  to  the  exercise  of  his  own  intellect ; 
nor  has  God  ever  supernaturaUy  revealed  any  truth  to 
which  man  coidd  naturall}-  attain. 

The  '  infallibility '  then  of  the  records  of  Divine  revela- 
tion is  rigidly  circumscribed  by  the  immediate  purpose  for 
which  that  revelation  was  intended. 

And  as  though  to  indicate  how  unimportant  is  any 
such  collateral  infallibility,  there  are  scarcely  any  hvo  great 
branches  of  the  Christian  Church  tvhich  are  even  agreed  as 
to  ivhat  constitutes  the  Bible.  They  are  agreed  neither  as 
to  the  constituent  books ;  nor  as  to  the  authoritative  text ; 
nor  as  to  the  correct  interpretation ;  nor  as  to  the  question 
whether  any  supplemental  authority  is  necessary ;  nor,  if 
so,  where  the  time  supplement  is  to  be  found. 

i.  They  are  not  agreed  as  to  the  books  which  constitute 
the  Bible. 

To  the  Church  of  the  first  century  for  many  years  the 
Bible  was  all  but  exclusively  the  Old  Testament. 

To  the  Church  of  the  second  and  third  centuries  the 
New  Testament  was  an  indeterminate  number  of  Christian 
wi'itings. 

To  the  Church  of  the  fifth  century— and  to  all  the 
Western  Church,  especially  since  the  Council  of  Trent— 
the  Apocrypha  was  also  a  part  of  the  Bible.^ 

1  Cone.  Trid.  Sess.  iv.  'Sacrosancta  Synodus  .  .  .  onmes  libros 
pari  pietatis  affoctu  et  reverentia  suscipit.' 


152  THE   BIBLE 

The  Syrian  Canon  only  recognised  three  of  the  Catholic 
Epistles  (James,  1  Peter,  1  John) ;  and  it  rejected  the 
Apocalypse,  as  do  the  lists  of  Chrysostom  and  Theodore.^ 

The  ancient  Jewish  Church  held  that  the  Old  Testament 
was  insufficient  without  the  addition  of  the  oral  Law. 

The  modern  Jewish  Church  takes  the  Old  Testament  in 
connection  with  the  oral  Law,  the  Tor  ah  Sheheal  Fell,  now 
embodied  in  the  Talmud— Mishna  and  Gemara. 

In  some  of  the  Reformed  Chm-ches  certain  books  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments  are  still  considered  to  be  of 
dubious  authenticity  and  only  secondary  authority. 

ii.  Nor  are  the  different  Churches  agreed  as  to  the  au- 
thoritative text. 

To  the  Eastern  Church  the  Old  Testament  is  represented 
by  the  Greek  translation. 

To  the  Western  Church  the  Bible  means  the  Latin  trans- 
lation of  Jerome  (the  Vulgate)  with  the  Apocrj'pha. 

To  the  English  Churches  the  Bible  means  ultimately  the 
Hebrew  and  Greek  originals,  exclusive  of  the  Apocrypha.^ 

iii.  Nor,  again,  are  the  Churches  agreed  as  to  any  rule 
of  interpretation. 

In  the  Romish  Church,  interpretation  must  be  conso- 
nant with  the  opinion  of  the  Fathers,  Councils,  Popes,  and 
'  tradition '  generally.  It  appeals  to  an  unanimis  consensus 
patrum  which  has  no  existence,  and  to  '  unwritten  tradi- 
tions,' of  which  many  are  mere  sacerdotal  inventions.^ 

1  On  the  Syrian  Canon  see  Bishop  Westcott,  Hie  Bible  in  the 
Church,  231  ff. 

2  '  Divine  authority  cannot  be  claimed  for  anything  which  is  not 
a  correct  translation  of  an  exact  copy  of  an  originally  authorised  utter- 
ance and  writing.'— Professor  Olver. 

3  At  the  Council  of  Trent  Bishop  Nachianti,  of  Chiozza,  main- 
tained that  Scripture  was  the  only  final  authority,  'because  in  the 
Gospel  everything  was  written  which  was  necessary  to  salvation ; ' 


'SUA  DOGMATA  QUISQUE'  153 

The  Reformed  Churches  maintain  the  right  of  private 
judgment,  with  no  necessary  reference  to  any  such  external 
authorities. 

The  Greek  Church  only  lays  down  the  vague  rule  that 
interpretation  must  be  consonant  with  her  own  authority. 

Thus,  even  if  there  be  an  infallible  rule  as  to  any  truths 
outside  the  Catholic  creeds,  there  is  no  agreement  in  the 
Churches  of  Christendom  as  to  what  the  infallible  rule  is. 
'  The  Bible '  means  one  text,  and  one  translation,  and  one 
set  of  books,  and  one  line  of  interpretation  to  the  Greek 
Church ;  another  text,  another  translation,  another  set  of 
books,  and  another  line  of  interpretation  to  the  Latin ;  and 
another  to  the  Churches  of  the  Reformation. 

It  is  tnie  that  when  Luther  dethroned  the  Pope  from 
his  position  of  pretended  infallibility,  the  narrow  and 
gi'eatly  inferior  divines  of  the  succeeding  century  en- 
deavoured to  derive  from  the  Bible  the  same  infallible  de- 
cision on  all  the  subjects  of  human  knowledge.  It  was 
assumed  that  this  assertion  of  Biblical  infallibility  would 
secure  unity  in  the  views  and  uniformity  in  the  practices 
of  Christendom.  And  certainly  if,  on  the  whole  breadth 
of  subjects  respecting  which  Christians  differ,  God  had 
intended  that  there  should  be  an  infallible  guide,  we 
should  have  looked  for  some  approach  to  unity,  if  not  to 
uniformity,  in  the  beliefs  of  Christendom.  But  an  infalli- 
ble guide  would  be  obviously  useless  without  infallible 
decisions  as  to  what  the  guide  is  and  what  it  says.  "We 
do  find  in  Christian  thought  a  general  unity  of  creed ;  we 
find  no  unity  whatever  in  opinions,  in  organisation,  or  in 
ceremonial.     "When  the  doctrine  of  Scriptural  infallibility 

but  he  was  enormously  outvoted,  and  it  was  decided  that  'unwritteu 
traditions '  were  to  be  accepted  with  the  same  veneration  as  the  Holy 
Scriptures  (Ranke,  i.  203). 


154  THE  BIBLE 

was  proclaimed  with  the  utmost  fierceness  of  inflexible 
dogmatism,  Werenf els— looking  round  him  at  the  bitter 
opinionativeness  which  was  raging  in  antagonistic  sects 
—wrote,  with  a  sigh,  the  celebrated  epigram— 

Hie  liber  est  in  quo  quaerit  sua  dogmata  quisque, 
Invenit  et  pariter  dogmata  quisque— stta. 

His  own  opinions  here  by  each  are  sought, 
And  here  to  each  his  oicn  opinions  taught. 

Clearly,  then,  the  infallibility  of  the  letter,  in  all  its  de- 
tails, even  if  it  existed,  and  even  if  all  were  agreed  as  to 
what  the  letter  is,  would  be  useless  without  some  further 
infallible  guide  as  to  what  the  letter  was  intended  to  mean; 
so  that  for  all  practical  purposes  the  dogma  is  infinitely 
sterile  and  leads  to  no  results. 

The  plain  teachings  of  Christ  are  the  sole  infallible 
guide ;  and  they  deal  with  the  essential  faith,  and  that 
only.  What  do  the  wide  differences  of  Christians  mean, 
except  that  they  practically  refuse  to  accept  Scripture 
alone  as  their  guide,  or  are  unwilling  or  unable  to  under- 
stand Scripture  in  the  sense  which  it  conveys  to  other 
Christians  ? 

Divines  of  the  most  opposite  schools— Popes  and  Re- 
formers—have insisted  on  the  absolute  '  lucidity '  of  Scrip- 
ture. It  is  true  that  in  its  simplest  elements  of  Gospel 
morality— in  aU  that  is  essential  to  human  saiutliness  and 
human  salvation— the  meaning  of  the  Bible  is  so  trans- 
parent that  he  who  runs  may  read,  and  that  the  wayfaring 
man,  yea,  and  even  fools,  need  not  err  therein ;  but  when 
we  proceed  to  the  minutiae  of  theology  and  ecclesiastieism 
the  existing  state  of  Christendom  is  alone  a  sufficient  proof 
either  that  Scripture  is  tiot  easy  to  be  imderstood,  or  that 
Christians  of  all  schools  have  gone  out  of  the  way  to  create 


OPPOSITE  INTERPRETATIONS  155 

the  most  immense  difficulties  for  themselves.  What  some 
Christians,  even  in  the  same  Church,  regard  as  dogmas  and 
practices  of  consummate  sacredness,  others,  quite  as  able 
and  quite  as  sincere,  despise  as  specimens  of  crude  mate- 
rialism and  unworthy  fetish-worship. 

Whence  comes  the  separation  of  antagonistic  Churches 
and  the  multiplicity  of  dissident  sects  ?  *  The  Romanist ' 
(if  I  may  adopt  with  some  modification  the  words  of  an- 
other) '  reads  the  Bible,  and  he  finds  in  it  the  primacy  of 
Peter,  the  supremacy  of  the  Church,  and  the  dii'ection  to 
"  do  penance  "  for  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  The  Protestant 
reads  it,  and  he  discovers  that  Rome  is  the  "  mystic  Baby- 
lon," the  "  mother  of  harlots,"  the  "  abomination  of  deso- 
lation." The  Sacerdotalist  reads  it,  and  he  sees  priestly 
supremacy,  eucharistic  sacrifice,  and  sacramental  salvation. 
The  Protestant  cannot  find  in  it  the  faintest  trace  of 
Sacerdotahsm,  nor  any  connection  whatever  between  offer- 
ing and  actual  sacrifice  and  the  holy  memorial  of  the 
Supper  of  the  Lord.  The  Congregationalist  reads  it,  and 
regards  Sacerdotalism  as  an  enormous  apostasy  from  the 
meaning  and  spirit  of  the  Gospel,  and  comes  away  con- 
vinced that  every  believer  is  his  own  all-sufficient  priest. 
The  Baptist  looks  into  it,  and  thinks  that  in  baptism  true 
believers  must  go  under  the  water  as  adults ;  most  other 
Christians  think  that  infants  should  be  baptised  and  that 
sprinkling  is  sufficient.  Cromwell  and  his  Roundheads 
read  it,  and  saw  everywhere  the  Lord  of  Hosts  leading  on 
His  followers  to  battle.  The  Quaker  reads  it,  finds  only 
the  Prince  of  Peace,  and  declares,  "He  that  takes  the 
sword  shall  perish  with  the  sword."  The  Anglican  Church- 
man was  long  persuaded  that  it  taught  the  doctrine  of 
passive  obedience,  and 

The  right  divine  of  kings  to  govern  wrong. 


156  THE  BIBLE 

The  Puritan  dwelt  on  ."binding  their  kings  in  chains 
and  theii*  nobles  with  links  of  iron."  The  Calvinist  sees 
the  dreadful  image  of  wrath  flaming  over  all  its  pages, 
and  says  to  his  enemies,  "  Our  God  is  a  consuming  fire." 
The  Universalist  only  sees  the  loving  heavenly  Father, 
and  explains  the  most  awful  forebodings  as  Oriental 
tropes  and  pictorial  rhetoric.  The  Mormon  picks  out 
phrases  to  bolster  up  his  polygamy ;  the  Monogamist 
cries  out  even  against  divorce ;  the  Shaker  and  his  con- 
geners in  all  ages  forbid  or  disparage  all  wedded  unions 
whatever.  The  American  of  the  Northern  States  loaded 
his  gun  with  texts  and  went  out  to  fight  for  freedom ;  the 
Southerner  quoted  the  curse  of  Ham,  and  the  Epistle  to 
Philemon,  declared  that  slavery  was  a  divine  institution, 
and  that  it  was  impious  unbelief  to  regard  it  as  a  crime.' 

'■  In  the  mirror  of  the  Bible,  each  partisan  will  practically 
see  nothing  but  his  own  face.  Each  declares,  more  or  less 
emphatically,  "  All  good  and  honest  people  see  it  as  I  do ;  " 
and  many  add,  "  a  different  opinion  means  wilful  blindness 
and  a  bad  heart."  Each  sect  is  tempted  to  treat  its  own 
enemies  as  the  Lord's  enemies ;  and  when  any  one  sect  or 
branch  of  the  Church  is  absolutely  dominant,  as  was  the 
Church  of  Rome  in  the  Dark  Ages,  it  has  usually  given  its 
opponents  a  terrific  foretaste  of  " uncovenanted  mercies" 
by  bm-ning  them  alive  in  this  world,  and  handing  them 
over  to  endless  torments  in  the  next.' 

Even  as  to  the  most  obvious  and  elementary  conceptions 
of  how  we  may  obtain  salvation  there  are— though  there 
ought  not  to  be— the  most  striking  differences.  One  man 
is  convinced  that  faith  alone  saves  us,  and  that '  works  are 
deadly ; '  another  can  quote  passages  from  Genesis  to 
Revelation  to  show  that  the  only  way  to  please  God  is  to 
do  the  thing  that  is  right.    One  man  attaches  a  notion  of 


BIBLE   COMMENTARIES  157 

saintliness  to  exaggerated  asceticism ;  another  looks  upon 
it  as  a  faithless  will-worship,  a  sin  against  the  body,  due 
to  false  and  semi-Manichean  conceptions  of  the  God  of 
love,  and  tending  only  to  destroy  the  body  and  daze  the 
soul. 

Truly,  if  over  the  whole  extent  of  what  we  call '  religion ' 
men  have  an  infallible  guide,  they  have— and  that  to  all 
appearance  inevitably— rendered  it  worse  than  useless  by 
fallible  expositions.  Of  seven  gi*eat  systems  of  interpre- 
tation which  have  been  dominant  since  there  ever  was  a 
collected  Bible,  the  bare  rules  and  d  priori  conceptions  on 
which  six  were  based  have  been  definitely  abandoned,  and 
have  been,  in  their  applications  at  any  rate,  demonstrably 
wrong.^ 

Whole  libraries  are  filled  with  commentaries  on  the 
Bible,  in  all  languages,  which  are  now  regarded  as  entirely 
obsolete.  Yet  they  were  laborious  and  honest  attempts  on 
the  part  of  their  authors  to  explain  the  true  meaning  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures.  They  were  only  vitiated  by  partial  know- 
ledge, false  religious  systems,  or  d,  priori  prejudices  which 
failed  to  see  the  significance  of  Scripture  because  they  looked 
at  it  through  blinding  mists  of  traditional  misconception. 

1  See  the  writer's  Bampton  Lectures  on  the  History  of  Interpreta- 
tion, p.  12.  Who  can  say  that  the  Eabbinic,  the  Kabbalistic,  the 
Alexandrian,  the  Allegorical,  the  Mystic,  the  Inferential,  the  Scholas- 
tic system  of  Exegesis  are  not,  as  systems,  dead  and  buried?  Any 
commentary  which  adopted  these  methods  would  in  these  days  be 
laughed  out  of  court,  or  flung  aside  as  obsolete,  and  almost  as  an  in- 
sult to  the  understanding. 


CHAPTER  XII 

DANGEROUS  RESULTS  OF  THE    SUPERNATURAL 
DICTATION   THEORY. 

'Ecclesia  non  facit  Verbmn,  sed  fit  Verbo.'— Luther. 
'  Having  waste  ground  enough, 
Shall  we  desire  to  raze  the  sanctuary 
And  plant  our  evils  there?'— Whittiee. 

Doctrines  may  be  tested  and  disproved  not  only  by  de- 
monstrating the  falsity  of  the  assumptions  on  which  they 
profess  to  be  founded,  but  also  by  showing  the  pernicious 
or  dangerous  character  of  their  invariable  results.  This 
method  is  sanctioned  by  Christ  Himself.  '  By  their  fruits,' 
He  said,  '  ye  shall  know  them.  Do  men  gather  grapes  of 
thorns,  or  figs  of  thistles  1 ' 

What  have  been  the  fruits  of  this  doctrine  of  Biblical 
infallibility? 

Let  us  begin  by  testing  it  in  one  domain  only — the  do- 
main of  science. 

It  is  now  generally  recognised,  except  among  the  half- 
educated,  that  on  scientific  subjects  the  Bible  neither  is, 
nor  professes  to  be,  nor  in  accordance  with  the  whole 
economy  of  God's  dealing  with  the  human  race  ever  could 
have  been,  any  authority  at  all  on  subjects  which  do  not 
faU  under  its  proper  object.     '  The  Scriptures,'  said  Arch- 

158 


BATTLES  AGAINST   SCIENCE  159 

bishop  Sumner,  'have  never  revealed  a  single  scientific 
truth.'  They  do  not  concern  themselves  with  the  problems 
of  which  the  solution  belongs  to  experimental  investigation. 
The  knowledge  of  the  writers  of  Scripture  on  the  subject 
of  exact  science  was  simply  the  human  and  individual 
knowledge  of  those  writers,  and  that  was  the  knowledge, 
or  rather  the  ignorance,  of  the  most  unscientific  of  all 
nations  in  the  most  unscientific  of  aU  ages.  To  the  He- 
brews by  whom  the  greater  part  of  the  Bible  was  wi'itten 
science  was  unknown ;  their  immemorial  habits  of  thought 
were  wholly  alien  from  the  scientific  spirit. 

Men  cling  so  obstinately  to  religious  hypotheses  long 
exploded  and  originally  -without  foundation,  that  some 
perhaps  may  regard  these  statements  as  heterodox  novel- 
ties, whereas  they  were  orthodox  truisms  long  before  any- 
thing that  could  be  called  science  was  established.  They 
are  practically  admitted  even  by  St.  Augustine  in  the 
fourth  century,  and  distinctly  laid  down  by  the  famous 
schoolman  Peter  Lombard,  '  the  Master  of  the  Sentences.'  ^ 
No  one  has  expressed  them  more  clearly  than  Galileo, 
who  was  persecuted  and  forced  to  recant  because  he  had 
dispelled  an  infallible  ignorance  and  discovered  some  of 
the  most  splendid  certainties  which  had  yet  been  made 
known  to  the  race  of  man.  '  I  believe,'  he  says,  '  that  the 
intention  of  Holy  Writ  was  to  persuade  men  of  the  truths 
necessary  to  salvation,  such  as  neither  science  nor  other 
means  could  render  credible,  but  only  the  voice  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  But  I  do  not  think  it  necessary  to  believe 
that  the  same  God  who  gave  us  our  senses,  our  speech, 
our  intellect,  would  have  put  aside  the  use  of  these  to 
teach  us  instead  such  things  as  with  their  help  we  could 
find  out  for  ourselves,  particularly  in  the  case  of  those 

^  Sentent.  ii.  dist.  23. 


160  THE  BIBLE 

sciences  of  which  there  is  not  the  smallest  mention  in 
Scripture.' 

There  is  scarcely  a  modern  science  which  has  not  been 
brought  into  deplorable  conflict  with  the  Bible  by  theo- 
logians who  misunderstood  its  scope  and  misapplied  its 
expressions.  The  history  of  most  modern  sciences  has 
been  as  follows.  Their  discoverers  have  been  proscribed, 
anathematised,  and,  in  every  possible  instance,  silenced  or 
persecuted ;  yet  before  a  generation  has  passed,  the  cham- 
pions of  a  spurious  orthodoxy  have  had  to  confess  that 
their  interpretations  were  erroneous ;  and— for  the  most 
part  without  an  apology  and  without  a  blush— have  com- 
placently invented  some  new  line  of  exposition  by  which 
the  phrases  of  Scripture  can  be  squared  into  semblable 
accordance  with  the  now  acknowledged  facts. 

Mr.  J.  S.  Mill  was  right  in  his  keen  analysis  when  he 
said  that  the  reception  accorded  to  each  new  truth  passed 
through  three  phases.  Fu-st  it  was  declared  to  be  danger- 
ous and  false ;  next  it  was  acknowledged  that  there  was 
something  to  be  said  for  it ;  and,  lastly,  men  turn  round 
and  declare,  '  We  said  so  all  along.'  ^  So,  with  reference 
to  each  new  scientific  discovery,  religious  teachers  begin 
by  saying, '  It  is  blasphemous  and  contrary  to  Scripture ; ' 
they  soon  maintain  'there  is  nothing  in  Scripture  which 
absolutely  contradicts  it ; '  and  they  generally  end  by  de- 
claring that  it  is  distinctly  revealed  in  Scripture  itself. 
Men  build  the  tombs  of  the  prophets  whom  their  fa- 
thers slew,  and  in  every  way  possible  to  them  continue  to 

1  LettertoCastelli,  1613.  Compare  the  remarks  made  by  Columbus 
at  Salamanca  in  1486. 

2  '  Lorsque  Colomb  avait  promis  im  nouvel  h^misph&re,  on  lui  avait 
soutenu  que  eet  h^misph^re  ne  pouvait  exister;  et  quand  il  I'eut  d^- 
couvert,  qu'il  avait  6t6  eonnu  depuis  longtemps.'— Voltaire. 


SCRIPTURE  AND   SCIENCE  161 

slay  the  prophets  whom  their  own  generation  brings 
forth.i 

The  only  question  to  be  asked  about  any  new  datum  of 
science  is  whether  it  is  proven  or  not.  If  it  be  true,  it  is 
a  revelation  of  God  in  the  sphere  of  nature  and  cannot 
possibly  contradict  any  other  revelation.  A  new  scientific 
discovery  may  very  well  contradict  some  incidental  phrase 
in  a  book  which  is  not  concerned  with  physical  inquiries ; 
and  it  may  coUide  still  more  absolutely  with  the  ignorant 
misinterpretations  and  unwarrantable  inferences  of  in- 
quisitors and  popes.  The  history  of  exegesis  is,  in  great 
measure,  a  history  of  errors.  But  Nature  is  a  book  which 
contains  a  revelation  of  God  in  one  sphere,  and  Scripture 
a 'book  which  contains  a  revelation  of  Him  in  another. 
Both  books  have  often  been  misread,  but  no  truth  revealed 
in  the  one  can  be  irreconcilable  with  any  truth  revealed  in 
the  other.  Nothing  has  done  deadlier  injury  to  the  majesty 
of  Scripture  in  its  own  proper  sphere  than  the  pride  which 
has  led  its  incompetent  interpreters  to  assume  that  they 
could  utter  infallible  oracles  respecting  every  branch  of 
human  knowledge  and  wield  the  thunderbolts  of  God  with 
the  puny  impotence  of  man. 

It  is  argued  by  writers  like  Gaussen  that  the  Bible  is  a 
perfect  authority  in  scientific  matters.  If  that  were  so, 
liow  useless  has  such  an  anticipation  of  the  scientific  toU 
of  years  proved  itself  to  be !  If  that  be  so,  how  comes  it 
that  all  the  leaders  of  science  and  discoverers  of  new 
truths  have  found  their  bitterest  critics  among  religious 
teachers?  and  how  comes  it  that  the  cosmogonies  which 
were  asserted  to  be  based  exclusively  on  Scriptural  data 
have  been  so  glaringly  ludicrous  ?    Will  anybody  accept 

1  See  Dr.  Andrew  D.  White,  New  Chapters  in  the  Warfare  of  Science 
(New  York,  1888). 
11 


162  THE  BIBLE 

in  these  days  the  tissue  of  absurdities  professedly  deduced 
from  Scripture  by  Pf eiffer  in  his  '  Pansophia  Mosaica '  ?  or 
the  ' LithographiaB  Specimen'  of  Professor  Beringer?  or 
the  'Topographia  Christiana'  of  the  Monk  Cosmas  In- 
dicopleustes  (about  a.d.  540)  ?  or  '  The  New  Theory  of  the 
Earth  from  its  Original  to  the  Consummation  of  aU 
Things,'  by  the  Rev.  WiUiam  Whiston  (1696)?  or  the 
'  TeUuris  Theoria  Sacra '  of  Thomas  Burnet  ?  Such  books 
furnish  the  clearest  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  the  Biblical 
theories  from  which  they  sprang.  Their  infallible  science 
is  beneath  criticism.  'Whiston/  said  Hallam,  'opposed 
Burnet's  theory,  but  with  one  not  less  unfounded,  nor  with 
less  ignorance  of  all  that  is  required  to  be  known.'  ^ 

i.  What  has  become  of  Lactantius's  denial,  on  the  au- 
thority of  Scripture,  that  the  world  is  round  ?  What  has 
become  of  the  confident  assertion  of  Ambrose,  and  so  many 
of  the  Fathers,  that  the  sky  is  a  solid  vault,  because  in 
Genesis  it  is  called  in  the  Hebrew  raqiang,  and  in  the 
Greek  version  orepeojua  ?  What  has  become  of  the  assertion 
of  Augustine  that  there  could  be  no  Antipodes,  because 
such  a  belief  would  be  contradictory  to  Scripture  ?  ^  What 
has  become  of  the  arguments  of  bigoted  Spanish  priests 

1  Hallam,  Lit.  Hist,  of  Eur.  iii.  594.  Calixt  was  called  an  impious 
heretic  for  denying  that  heaven  was  a  solid  vault ;  and  another  theo- 
logian, in  the  sixteenth  century,  argued  that  God  'left  the  vault 
swinging  there  until  three  days  later  he  put  the  earth  under  it.'  On 
the  whole  subject  see  especially  Zoekler,  Gesch.  d.  Bezieliungen 
swisclien  Thcologic  u.  Naturicissenschaft;  Lyell's  Geology  (Introduc- 
tion) ;  and  the  book  of  Dr.  Andrew  Dickson  White,  late  President  of 
Cornell  University,  on  the  Warfare  of  Science.  He  points  out  the 
three  phases  of  this  warfare— fii'st,  the  hurling  of  Scripture  texts  at 
the  now  scientific  truth  ;  tlien  the  pitting  against  it  of  some  theologi- 
cal doctrine;  thirdly,  'reconciliations'  and  'harmonies.' 

2  Aug.  De  Civ.  Dei,  xvi.  9.  Similarly  Pope  Zacharias,  Ep.  x.  ad 
Bonifac,  where  the  belief  in  the  Antipodes  is  called  ']}er versa  et 
iniqua  doctrina.' 


ROGER  BACON  163 

who  tried  on  Biblical  grounds  to  argne  the  impossibility 
that  Columbus  could  discover  another  hemisphere  ?  Did 
not  even  Calvin  protest  against  the  heliocentric  system 
because  it  seemed  to  him  inconsistent  with  '  He  hath  made 
the  round  world  so  fast  that  it  cannot  he  moved' 1  'Who,' 
he  asked, '  will  venture  to  place  the  authority  of  Copernicus 
above  that  of  the  Holy  Spirit  ? '  And  did  not  even  John 
Wesley  reject  the  system  of  Copernicus  because  he  declared 
it  to  be  incompatible  with  Scripture  ?  The  learned  Puritan 
John  Owen  had  already  done  the  same.  'Newton's  dis- 
coveries,' he  said,  'are  against  evident  testimonies  of 
Scripture.'  Even  Kepler  had  to  suffer  for  years  from  the 
attacks  and  opposition  of  ecclesiastical  ignorance. 

'I  challenge  these  divines  and  their  adherents,'  says 
Coleridge,  '  to  establish  the  compatibility  of  a  belief  in 
modern  astronomy  and  natural  philosophy  with  their 
doctrine  respecting  the  inspired  Scriptm*es,  without  reduc- 
ing the  doctrine  itself  to  a  plaything  of  wax— or  rather  a 
half-inflated  bladder,  which,  when  the  contents  are  rarefied 
in  the  heat  of  rhetorical  generalities,  swells  out  round  and 
without  a  crease  or  wrinkle.' 

ii.  In  Roger  Bacon  (b.  1214)  God  gave  to  the  world  the 
keenest  and  noblest  intellect  which  appeared  for  twelve 
centuries.  Had  he  been  left  in  peace  to  pursue  the  bent 
of  his  heaven-bestowed  genius,  he  might  have  antedated 
by  generations  not  a  few  of  the  most  beneficent  and  beau- 
tiful of  scientific  discoveries.  Unfortunately,  however,  he 
was  a  Franciscan,  placed  by  his  circumstances  under  the 
tyranny  of  friars.  He  was  treated  as  a  magician,  igno- 
rantly  scorned,  ignorantly  thwarted,  calumniated,  tortured, 
for  ten  years  confined  to  a  dungeon. ^  And  it  is  said  that 
before  he  died  he  so  felt  the  boundless  stupidity  and 

1  He  says  {Opus  Tertium)  that  he  was  starved  and  treated  *in- 
effabili  violentia.' 


164  THE  BIBLE 

ingratitude  displayed  towards  him  in  the  world  and  by  the 
Church  as  to  declare  that  men  were  not  worth  serving  and 
working  for. 

iii.  God  kindled  another  radiant  light  in  the  soul  of 
Galileo  (b.  1564).  While  still  quite  young  the  gifted  boy, 
watching,  if  the  story  be  true,  the  swinging  of  the  great 
bronze  lamj^  in  the  cathedral  of  Pisa,  and  measuring  its 
oscillations  by  the  beat  of  his  pulse,  discovered  the 
'  isochronism  of  the  vibrations  of  the  pendulum.'  He  was 
still  young  when,  by  experimenting  with  metal  balls  from 
the  Leaning  Tower  of  Pisa,  he  discovered  the  law  of  the 
velocity  of  falling  bodies.  He  invented  the  thermometer, 
and  by  his  telescope  discovered  the  phases  of  Venus  and 
the  satellites  of  Jupiter,  and  resolved  into  separate  stars 
the  Nebulee  of  the  Galaxy.  In  1616  Pope  Paul  V.  sum- 
moned hun  to  Rome,  and  forbade  him  to  teach  the  true 
theory  of  the  universe.  But  in  1632  his  famous  dialogue 
on  the  Ptolemaic  and  Copernican  systems  raised  an  outcry 
at  Rome ;  and  Galileo,  then  sixty-eight,  was  summoned 
before  the  Inquisition,  confined  to  prison,  and  forced  to 
abjure  on  his  knees  the  true  doctrine  of  the  motion  of  the 
earth.  E  inir  si  muove !  The  '  Holy  Office '  placed  the '  De 
Orbium  Ccelestium  Revolutionibus '  of  Copernicus,  and 
Keplei-'s  abridgment  of  it,  on  the  index  of  prohibited 
books. 

In  1616  the  theologians  of  the  '  Holy  Office '  denounced 
the  heliocentric  theory  as  'absurd  in  philosophy  and 
formally  heretical,  because  expressly  contrary  to  Holy 
Scriptures,'  ^  and  the  discovered  rotation  of  the  earth  as 
'open  to  the  same  censure  in  philosophy,  and  at  least 
erroneous  as  to  faith.' 

iv.  Similarly  as  late  as  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
1  The  reference  was  to  Josh.  x.  12  ! 


GALILEO.     GEOLOGY  165 

century  the  illustrious  Buffon  was  assailed  by  the  theolo- 
gical faculty  of  the  Sorbonne,  and  forced  to  recant  the 
simple  geological  truths  which  he  had  stated.  This 
humiliating  document  reminds  us  painfully  of  that  forced 
upon  Galileo.  It  runs,  *  I  abandon  everything  in  my  book 
respecting  the  formation  of  the  earth,  and  generally  all 
which  may  be  contrary  to  the  narrative  of  Moses.'  The 
line  now  taken  by  apologists  is  very  different  from  that 
of  previous  centuries,  and  less  honest.  It  declares  that 
Genesis  and  geology  are  in  exact  accord.  It  no  longer 
refuses  to  believe  the  facts  of  nature,  but  instead  of  this 
it  l)oldly  sophisticates  the  facts  of  Scripture. 

v.  We  eulogise  the  martyrs  of  science,  and  declare  that 
we  should  not  have  been  so  foolish  and  so  cruel  if  we  had 
lived  in  the  days  of  our  fathers.  Yet  we  have  learnt  no 
wisdom.  When  God  gave  the  world  the  priceless  boon  of 
anaesthetics,  one  of  the  most  blessed  and  gracious  gifts  to 
a  worn  and  weary  generation,  there  were  many  who  de- 
clared that  to  use  anaesthetics  in  the  commonest  cases  of 
anguish  was  to  fly  in  the  face  of  Providence  by  trying  to 
escape  the  curse  which  God  had  pronounced  on  the  daugh- 
ters of  Eve !  In  these  days  no  one  ventures  to  reject  the 
results  of  modern  geology ;  but  when  geologists  began  to 
decipher  the  records  carved  by  God's  finger  on  the  stone 
tablets  of  the  world,  and  were  driven  by  the  force  of  facts 
to  maintain  that  the  world  could  not  have  been  made  in 
six  literal  days,  and  must  have  lasted  for  indefinite  aeons 
longer  than  six  thousand  years,  they  were  met  with  floods 
of  furious  anathema  and  declared  to  be  blasphemers  and 
atheists  deserving  of  everlasting  perdition.^     But  'such 

1  Thus,  forgotten  clergymen,  the  Reverend  J.  Mellor  Brown  and 
the  Reverend  H.  Cole,  called  men  like  Professor  Sedg^\'ick  'infidels,' 
'impugners  of  the  sacred  record,'  'assailants  of  the  volume  of  God,' 


166  THE   BIBLE 

methods  were  like  Chinese  gongs  and  dragon  lanterns 
against  rifled  cannon.'  ^ 

But  what  has  now  become  of  the  notion  of  some  that 
fossil  remains  were  due  to  Noah's  flood?  What  of 
Scheuchzer's  Homo  cUluvii  test  is  (1726),  which  turned  out 
to  be  not  a  drowned  giant,  but  a  harmless  fossil  lizard? 
"Where  are  all  the  scores  of  triumphant  refutations  of  the 
wicked  geologists  ? 

In  all  such  conflicts  a  self-styled  theology,  intruding  into 
regions  of  which  it  is  profoundly  nescient,  exhibits  no- 
thing but  its  own  impotence  and  rage.  No  sight  is  more 
distressing  than  that  of  religious  teachers  who,  knowing 
little  of  anything,  and  nothing  of  science,  and  not  exhibit- 
ing the  smallest  sign  of  moral  elevation  over  others,  but 
often  very  much  the  reverse,  assume  oracular  airs  of 
superiority  over  the  patient  students  of  God's  works. 
Nothing  but  rout  has  ever  followed  such  attempted 
usurpations.  Whatever  inferences  may  have  been  di'awn 
from  the  misapplication  of  the  narrative  of  creation,  there 
is  no  sane  person  who  now  believes  that  the  world  was 
made  in  six  solar  days ;  or  that  the  trees  and  plants  were 
created  before  there  was  any  sunlight;  or  that  all  the 
stars  were  created  after  the  earth  was  covered  with  vegeta- 
tion ;  or  that  aU  the  fishes  and  bii'ds  were  created  previ- 

&c.  See  Lecky,  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  ch.  ix. ;  Lyell, 
Introduction  to  Principles  of  Geology, 

1  '  The  favourite  weapon  of  the  "  orthodox  "  party  was  the  charge 
that  the  geologists  were  "attacking  the  truth  of  God."  They  de- 
nounced geology  as  "a  dark  art,"  "dangerous  and  disreputable," 
"  infernal  artillery, "  "  an  awful  evasion  of  the  testimony  of  Kevela- 
tion."  This  attempt  to  scare  men  from  the  science  having  failed  .  .  . 
it  is  humiliating  to  human  nature  to  remember  the  annoyances,  and 
even  trials,  to  which  the  pettiest  and  narrowest  of  men  subjected 
such  scholars  as  Silliman,  Hitchcock,  and  Louis  Agassiz.'— Dr.  White. 


GENESIS  I.  1G7 

ously  to  all  qaadmpeds  and  reptiles ;  or  a  multitude  of 
other  details  which  have  beeu  inferred  fi'om  regarding  the 
first  chapter  of  Genesis  as  a  scientific  document  instead  of 
regarding  it  as  a  religious  revelation.  It  is  now  under- 
stood by  competent  inquirers  that  geology  is  God's  reve- 
lation to  us  of  one  set  of  truths,  and  Genesis  of  quite 
another. 

vi.  Again,  which  of  us  does  not  remember  the  burst  of 
scorn  and  hatred  with  which  the  theory  of  evolution  was 
first  received  ?  Mr.  Darwin  endured  the  fury  of  pulpits 
and  Church  Congresses  with  quiet  dignity.  Not  one  angry 
or  contemptuous  word  escaped  him.  The  high  example  of 
patient  magnanimity  and  Christian  forbearance  was  set  by 
him;  the  savage  denunciations  and  fierce  insolence  came 
from  those  who  should  have  set  a  better  example.  What 
has  happened  since  then?  The  hypothesis  of  evolution, 
taken  in  its  whole  extent,  is  still  an  hj-pothesis  only. 
Proofs  final  and  decisive  are  confessedly  wanting.  On  the 
admission  of  its  supporters  links  are  still  missing  from  the 
evidence  in  its  favour.  Yet  before  Mr.  Darwin's  life  was 
over  two  things  had  happened.  On  the  one  hand  his 
hypothesis  had  been  accepted  as  a  luminous  guide  to  in- 
quiry by  the  large  majority  of  the  leading  scientists  of 
Europe  and  America ;  and  even  those  who  reject  its  extreme 
inferences  fully  admit  that  it  rests  on  a  wide  induction  and 
furnishes  an  explanation  for  many  phenomena.  That 
there  is  such  a  law  as  that  of  natural  selection  in  the 
struggle  for  existence  all  are  now  agi*eed.  Further,  the 
theory  of  evolution  has  now  been  admitted  as  a  possible 
explanation  of  the  phenomena  of  life  by  leading  theolo- 
gians, and  we  have  been  told  on  all  sides  that,  if  it  should 
prove  to  be  true,  there  is  nothing  in  it  which  is  contrary 
to  the  creeds  of  the  Catholic  faith.     Not  a  voice  was  raised 


168  THE  BIBLE 

in  opposition  when  Mr.  Darwin  was  laid  with  a  nation's 
approval  in  his  honoui'ed  grave  in  Westminster  Abbey ; 
and— seeing  how  noble  was  his  example,  how  gentle  and 
pure  his  character,  how  simple  his  devotion  to  truth,  how 
deep  his  studies,  how  memorable  his  discoveries,  even  apart 
from  the  view  which  is  mainly  associated  with  his  name— 
I  regarded  it  as  an  honour  that  I  was  asked  to  be  one  of 
the  bearers  of  his  pall,  and  to  preach  his  funeral  sermon 
in  the  nave  of  Hhe  great  temple  of  silence  and  recon- 
ciliation.' 

vii.  The  dim  and  furious  battle  between  science  and  that 
which  was  mistaken  for  religion  has  been  chiefly  waged 
over  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis.  That  chapter  is  of  tran- 
scendent value,  and  in  a  few  lines  corrected  the  Idolatry, 
the  Polytheism,  the  Atheism,  the  Pantheism,  the  Ditheism, 
the  Agnosticism,  the  Pessimism  of  millions  of  mankind. 
No  science  has  ever  collided  with,  or  can  ever  modify  its 
true  and  deep  object,  which  was  to  set  right  an  erring 
world  in  the  supremely  important  knowledge  that  there 
was  one  God  and  Father  of  us  all,  the  Creator  of  heaven 
and  earth,  a  God  who  saw  all  things  which  He  has  made, 
and  pronounced  them  to  be  very  good.  It  was  written 
to  substitute  simplicity  for  monstrous  compHcations,  and 
peace  for  wild  terrors,  and  hope  for  blank  despair. 

It  is  not  worth  while  to  expose  again  the  absurdities 
distorted  out  of  this  great  chapter  by  its  professed  com- 
mentators. I  have  shown  in  my  Bampton  Lectures  the 
masses  of  foUy  educed  from  it  by  the  systomatised  and 
fatal  art  of  Jewish  and  Cihristian  misinterpretation.^ 
They  who  will  may  there  read  the  trivialities,  heresies,  and 
forced  inferences,  for  which  the  very  first  verse  of  it  was 
made  responsible  by  the  Tahnudists,  by  Philo,  by  the 

^  History  of  Interpretation  (Bampton  Lectxires,  1885),  pp.  36-41. 


GENESIS  I.  169 

Fatliers,  by  the  Kabbalists,  by  Pico  of  Mirandola,  and 
many  more.  St.  Augustine,  far  wiser  in  some  of  his  gene- 
ral remarks  than  in  the  minutia?  of  his  detailed  explana- 
tions, truly  says  that  '  the  Sense  of  Scripture  is  Scripture ; ' 
l)ut '  by  giving  it  a  wrong  sense,'  says  Bishop  WordsAvorth, 
*  men  make  God's  word  become  their  own  word,  or  even 
the  Temptei''s  word,  and  then  Scripture  is  used  for  our 
destruction,  instead  of  making  us  wise  unto  salvation.'  ^ 
1  Miscellanies,  ii.  17. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  BIBLE  NOT  THE  ONLY  SOURCE  PROM  WHICH 
WE  CAN  LEARN  OF  GOD. 

'The  fulness  of  Him  who  filleth  all  in  all.'— Eph.  i.  23. 
'God  hath  filled  all  things,  and  hath  penetrated  all  things,  and 
hath  left  nothing  empty  or  void  of  Himself .'—Philo,  Be  Legg.  Allegg. 
iii.  2. 

'  One  accent  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
The  heedless  world  has  never  lost.'— Emerson. 
'  Three  volumes  he  assiduously  perused. 
Which  heavenly  wisdom  and  delight  infused, 
God's  works,  his  conscience,  and  the  Book  inspired.' 

Bishop  Ken,  Hymnotheo. 

It  was  the  once  widely  ciu'rent  saying  of  CMUingworth 
that  'the  Bible  and  the  Bible  only  is  the  religion  of 
Protestants.' 

The  phrase  was  far  from  accurate ;  for  how  can  a  book 
he  a  religion  ? 

Many  definitions  of  religion  have  been  attempted.  It 
has  been  called  '  a  likeness  to  God  according  to  our  ability ' 
(Plato) ;  '  reverence  to  the  moral  law  as  a  divine  command ' 
(Kant) ;  '  the  union  of  the  Fhiite  with  the  Infinite '  (Schel- 
ling) ;  '  the  whole  duty  of  man '  (Jeremy  Taylor) ;  '  submis- 
sion with  homage'  (Holbeach).  The  essence  of  it  has 
been  said  to  consist  '  in  the  sense  of  an  open  secret  which 

170 


DEFINITIONS  OF   RELIGION  171 

man  cannot  penetrate '  (Hnxley)  and  '  the  seeing  in  nature 
a  somewhat  transcending  nature'  (Renau).  Fleck,  after 
careful  examination,  defines  it  as  '  a  binding  back,  a  re- 
straining of  men,  an  arrest  of  their  natural  impulses  and 
desires.'  ^  Wliichcote  admirably  says,  '  Religion  is  a  good 
mind  and  a  good  life.'  '  Religion,'  says  the  Bishop  of  Dur- 
ham, *  in  its  completeness  is  the  harmony  of  Philosophy, 
Ethics,  and  Art,  blended  into  one  by  a  spiritual  force,  by 
a  consecration  at  once  personal  and  absolute.'  ^ 

In  -which  of  all  these  senses  can  the  Bible  he  a  religion  ? 
'  The  letter,'  said  Lessing,  '  is  not  the  Spirit,  and  the  Bible 
is  not  religion— the  religion  was  there  before  a]  Bible 
existed.' 

Chillingworth  might  have  expressed  what  was  no  doubt 
his  real  meaning  in  many  forms  which  would  have  been 
both  true  and  unobjectionable.  He  might  have  said  that 
the  Bible  sufficiently  contains  the  religion  of  Protestants; 
or  that  Protestants  refer  to  the  Bible  as  their  sole  ultimate 
authority ;  or  that  the  Bible,  without  any  addition,  will 
teach  a  Christian  aU  that  he  ought  to  know  for  his  soul's 
salvation. 

But  besides  the  slovenly  laxity  of  calling  the  Bible  '  a 
religion,'  an  entirely  false  conception  may  be  conveyed  by 
saying  that  'the  Bible  only  is  the  religion  of  Protestants.' 

For  this  would  seem  to  exclude  all  other  sources  of 
Divine  instruction.  God  has  pro\'ided  us  w^ith  other  means 
of  knowing  Him,  and  it  is  not  piety,  but  ingratitude  and 

1  Dogmafik,  1-10.  See  Parker,  I>isc.  of  Eel.  p.  27 ;  Griffith,  Funda- 
mcntah,  p.  252.  Fleck  quotes  A.  Gellms,  'Religiof5us  pro  casto  atque 
observante,  eohibenteque  sese  certis  legibus  finibusque  dici  est  coep- 
tus;'  and  Servius,  'Religio,  i.e.  Metus  ab  eo  quod  mentem  religet;' 
Arnobius,  'Religio  saepissime  est  horror,  qui  objectus  nobis  ab 
aliquo  signo,  coercet  nos  ot  quasi  religatos  tenet.' 

2  Wostcott,  Bd.  nioiight  in  (he  West,  p.  344. 


172  THE   BIBLE 

neglect,  to  close  and  repudiate  the  other  works  of  God  for 
the  undue  glorification  of  one  among  them. 

Scripture  is  not  God's  only  revelation  to  mankind.  On 
the  contrary,  one  of  the  priceless  blessings  which  Scriptiu-e 
bestows  upon  our  race  is  that  it  constantly  refers  us  to 
other  sources  of  revelation,  and  gives  us  our  best  help  to- 
wards theii'  interpretation.  '  In  the  deepest  meaning  of 
the  essential  and  only  truth,'  says  Stier,  '  all  things  in  the 
world  are  only  variously  embodied  words  of  the  Creator, 
inasmuch  as  by  His  mighty  word  alone  they  are  upheld  in 
being.  Hence  the  Hebrew  Dabhar  and  the  Greek  Rhema 
signify  in  Scripture  both  ''word"  and  "thing."'  'God 
does  not  speak  grammatical  vocables,'  says  Luther,  'but 
true  essential  things.  Thus  sun  and  moon,  Peter  and 
Paul,  thou  and  I,  are  nothing  but  words  of  God.'  '  Facts,' 
it  has  been  said,  '  are  God's  words,  and  to  be  disloyal  to 
God's  facts  is  to  dethrone  Him  from  the  world.' 

1.  For  instance,  God  is  revealed  to  us  in  History.  With 
God  the  facts  of  history  are  lessons.  Amid  the  wildest 
tumults  of  national  confusion  His  voice  is  heard.  Amid 
the  most  intricate  perplexities  of  human  aims.  His  hand  is 
still  laid  upon  the  wheelwork  of  human  destiny.  His 
Spirit  is  in  the  wheels,  and  unless  the  Spirit  moves,  the 
wheels  move  not.  No  man  can  study  the  authentic  history 
of  any  nation  without  hearing  a  great  voice  rolling  across 
the  centuries  which  proclaims  a  law  older  and  more  ma- 
jestic than  any  human  legislation.  Such  Psalms  as  the 
105th,  the  106th,  the  135th,  the  136th ;  such  swift  sum- 
maries of  the  Jewish  annals  as  are  found  in  Deuteronomy 
i.-iii.,  in  Joshua  xxiv.,  in  2  Kings  xvii.  6-23 ;  such  luminous 
expositions  of 

What  makes  a  nation  happy  and  keeps  it  so, 
What  ruins  kingdoms  and  lays  cities  flat, 


HISTORY  173 

as  are  found  in  the  Hebrew  prophets,  with  their  paeans  of 
promise  and  their  bm-dens  of  woe— are  all  but  comments 
on  the  one  Divine  truth  that  *  He  is  the  Lord  our  God ;  His 
judgments  are  in  all  the  earth.'  The  Scriptures  set  forth 
the  one  real  philosophy  of  history,  that  '  Righteousness 
exalteth  a  nation,  and  sin  is  the  reproach  of  any  people.'  ^ 
They  constitute,  in  fact,  that  Divine  interpretation  of 
Jewish  history  which  reveals  the  eternal  principle  on  which 
all  history  may  be  judged  and  understood.  Vico  said  that 
history  is  '  a  civil  theology  of  Divine  Providence,'  and  that 
is  a  truth  which  we  learn  from  the  Bible  in  its  earliest  pages. 

Orosius  began  his  history,  which  is  practically  a  sum- 
mary and  illustration  of  St.  Augustine's  book  '  On  the  City 
of  God,'  with  the  famous  words, '  The  world  and  humanity 
are  under  the  guidance  of  a  Divine  Providence'— 'Divina 
Providentia  agitur  mundus  et  homo.'  Other  histories— as 
for  instance  the  famous  '  Discoui's  sur  I'Histoire  univer- 
selle'  (1681)  of  Bossuet— were  wiitten  to  illustrate  the 
same  great  thesis. 

'  The  history  of  the  world  is  not  intelligible  apart  from 
the  government  of  the  world,'  said  Wilhelm  von  Hum- 
boldt. '  Every  stej)  in  advance  in  history,'  said  Ficlite, 
*  every  mental  act  which  introduces  into  its  chain  of  occur- 
rences something  absolutely  new,  is  an  inflowing  of  God. 
God  alone  makes  history,  but  He  does  this  b}'  the  agency 
of  man.'  -  *  Die  Weltgeschichte,'  sang  Schiller,  '  ist  das 
Weltgericht.'  '  Great  men,'  said  Carlyle, '  are  the  inspired 
texts  of  that  Di\dne  book  of  Revelations,  whereof  a  chap- 
ter is  completed  from  epoch  to  epoch,  and  is  by  some 
named  History.'  ^  St.  Paul  expressed  this  truth  when  to 
the  Stoics  and  Epicureans  on  the  Areopagus  he  said, '  God 

1  Prov.  xiv.  34.  2  Fichte,  Spec.  TJieol.  p.  651. 

3  Sartor  Ecsartus,  p.  108. 


174  THE   BIBLE 

made  of  one  every  nation  of  men,  .  .  .  having  determined 
their  appointed  seasons  .  .  .  that  they  should  seek  God, 
if  haply  thoy  might  feel  after  Him  and  find  Him,  though 
He  is  not  far  from  each  one  of  us ;  for  in  Him  we  hve,  and 
move,  and  have  our  being,  as  certain  even  of  yoiu'  own 
poets  have  said,  "  For  we  are  also  His  offspring." ' 

2.  History,  then,  is  a  book  of  God  in  which  we  are  able 
to  read  at  large  the  lessons  which  are  wi-itten  on  a  smaller 
scale  in  the  lives  of  individual  men.  In  the  book  of 
biography  we  learn  how  God  deals  with  separate  souls ;  in 
the  book  of  history  how  He  deals  with  nations  of  men. 
In  both  books  He  reveals  to  us  His  wiU,  and  both  are 
books  of  God.  God  never  ceases  to  teach  us ;  never  ceases 
to  be  with  us.  Biography  records  the  unending  lessons 
of  human  experience,  and 

All  experience  is  an  arch  wherethrough 

Gleams  the  untravelled  world,  whose  margin  fades 

For  ever  and  for  ever  as  we  move. 

The  wisely  and  truly  recorded  lives  of  men  are  beacon- 
lights  of  warning  or  of  hoi:)e  to  future  generations. 

3.  Again,  Scripture  frequently  refers  us  to  Nature,  as  a 
revelation  of  God  to  man.  Now  by  Nature  we  do  not 
mean  some  mysterious  entity  endowed  by  the  imagination 
with  independent  power,  but  the  sum  total  of  those  laws 
by  which  God  governs  the  material  universe.  '■  Duo  sunt,' 
says  St.  Augustine,  'qure  in  eognitionem  Dei  ducunt, 
creatio  et  Scriptura.'  Such  glorious  Psalms  as  the  104tli 
and  the  107th,  together  with  the  whole  concluding  section 
of  the  Book  of  Job,  lead  us  to  see  in  Nature  God's  declara- 
tion of  His  omnipotence,  His  unchangeableness,  His  infinite 
majesty,  the  awfulness  of  His  judgments,  the  tenderness 
of  His  love.     We  are  taught  indeed  that  this  was  the  main 


NATURE  175 

and,  as  far  as  it  went,  the  adequate  revelation  of  God  to 
the  heathen  world.  It  was  hereby  that  '  He  left  not  Him- 
self without  witness,  in  that  He  did  good,  and  gave  us  rain 
from  heaven  and  fruitful  seasons,  filling  our  hearts  with 
food  and  gladness.'  ^  It  was  herein  that  men  might '  seek 
the  Lord,  if  haply  they  might  feel  after  Him  and  find 
Him.'  -  It  was  herewith  that  God  made  manifest  to  them 
what  may  be  known  of  Him,^  '  for  the  hmsihle  things  of 
Him  from  the  creation  of  the  world  are  clearly  seen,  being 
understood  by  the  things  that  are  made,  even  His  everlast- 
ing power  and  divinity.' 

'  Dei  est  Seriptura,'  says  Tertullian, '  Dei  est  natura,  Dei 
est  disciplina ;  quicquid  contrarium  est  istis,  Dei  non  est.'  * 

Men  have  been  terribly  the  losers  by  neglecting  the  reve- 
lation of  God  in  Nature.  The  co-ordination  of  the  lessons 
taught  to  us  by  the  visible  creation  with  the  lessons  taught 
to  us  in  Scripture  would  have  helped  to  make  the  world 
more  holy  and  more  wise.  For  the  moral  lessons  taught 
us  by  Nature  and  by  Science  are  absolutely  accordant  with 
the  moral  lessons  of  Holy  Writ. 

i.  How  cloarly,  for  instance,  does  Nature  coincide  with 
Scripture  in  teaching  us  that  '■  the  soul  that  sinneth,  it 
shall  die.'  Nature  teaches  us  that  punishment  is  no 
arbitrary  infliction,  but  that  it  is  due  to  the  working  of 
beneficent  and  inevitable  laws.  It  enables  us  more  clearly 
to  understand  the  relation  of  oui'  mortal  bodies  to  the  sur- 
roniuling  universe.  It  shows  us  that  man's  heaven-born 
spirit  can  triumph  over  the  influence  of  its  mortal  environ- 
ment, and  by  obeying  law  can  make  every  power  of  law 
subservient  to  its  own  blessing. 

1  Acts  xiv.  17.  2  Acts  xvii.  27.  3  Rom.  i.  19,  20. 

<  De  Virg.  Vd.  16.  He  continues,  '  Si  Seriptura  incerta  est,  natura 
certa  est.' 


176  THE  BIBLE 

ii.  Or  take  but  one  further  illustration  of  the  truths 
which  Nature  reveals.  '  By  the  greatness  and  beauty  of 
the  creatures/  says  the  wi'iter  of  the  Book  of  Wisdom, 
'  proportionably  the  Maker  of  them  is  seen.'  ^  More  over- 
whelmingly even  than  the  Scriptui*es  do '  the  starry  heavens 
above'  make  manifest  to  us  the  magnificence  of  the 
Creator.  If  those  'innumerable  passionless  eyes'  have 
power  to  ^burn  his  nothingness  into  man/  they  at  the 
same  time  reveal  to  him  his  greatness,  for  they  evince  the 
love  of  the  Father  in  heaven.  The  sense  of  the  infinitude 
in  which  our  own  world  is  but  an  atom,  and  in  the  midst 
of  which  the  life  of  man,  apart  from  God,  would  be  but 

A  trouble  of  ants  in  a  million  million  of  suns, 

need  not  by  any  means  crush  the  soul  of  man  into  abject- 
ness.  The  heavens  uplift  us  by  their  majesty  and  soothe 
us  with  their  peace.  They  show  us  that  He  who  implanted 
in  the  human  soul  the  sense  of  beauty  has  gratified  that 
sacred  instinct  abundantly  with  the  gift  of  beauty,  and  has 
thus  everywhere  imparted  to  us  a  boon,  superfluous  to  the 
working  of  His  creative  laws,  yet  infinitely  precious,  for 
our  perpetual  gratification.  No  portions  of  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  are  more  impressive  than  those  in  which  the 
Saviour  points  to  the  lessons  of  the  lilies  and  the  sparrows ; 
and  no  chapters  of  the  Old  Testament  are  more  full  of 
beauty  and  eloquence  than  those  in  which  God  answers 
Job  out  of  the  whirlwind  and  points  him  to  the  waters,  and 
the  heavens,  and  the  storms,  and  the  dew  and  frost ;  to  the 
speed  of  the  ostrich,  the  flight  of  the  hawk,  the  lustre  of 
the  peacock's  plumes,  the  war-horse  with  the  terrible  glory 
of  his  nostrils,  'Behemoth  trampling  the  forests,  and 
Leviathan  tempesting  the  seas ' ! 

^  Wisdom  xiii.  5.     Compare  Job  xxxvii.-xli. 


THE  GENTILES  177 

4.  And  there  is  yet  another  book  of  God.  It  is  the 
Conscience  of  man— which  an  old  divine  calls  'the Private 
Secretary  of  God  within  us.'  It  is  Conscience  which  makes 
us  listen  to  Duty,  that '  stern  daughter  of  the  voice  of  God.' 

And  St.  Paul  points  to  Conscience  no  less  than  to 
Nature  as  the  Bibles  of  the  Gentiles.  'For/  he  says, 
'  when  Gentiles  which  have  no  law  do  by  nature  the  things 
of  the  law,  these,  having  no  law,  are  a  law  unto  themselves ; 
in  that  they  show  the  work  of  tlie  law  written  in  their 
hearts,  their  conscience  bearing  witness  therewith,  and 
their  thoughts  one  with  another  accusing  or  else  excusing 
them;  in  the  day  when  God  shall  judge  the  secrets  of 
men.'  ^ 

Thus  God's  methods  of  revealing  Himself  are  manifold : 

Not  by  one  portal  or  one  path  alone 
His  awfiil  messages  to  men  are  known. 

From  History,  and  Experience,  and  Nature,  and  Con- 
science, and  from  other  sources  also,  the  Gentiles,  by  the 
aid  of  His  Spirit,  realised  many  of  the  same  truths  which 
are  brought  liome  to  us  by  the  witness  of  those  Scriptures 
wliicli  the)'  did  not  possess.  The  millions  of  the  heathen 
were  not  unloved  by  their  God  and  Father.  He  did  not 
leave  tlioni  to  grope  helplessly  in  the  midst  of  a  darkness 
which  might  l)e  felt.     In  every  age  and  in  every  land 

God,  stooping,  showed  sufficient  of  His  light 
For  those  in  the  dark  to  walk  by. 

We  feel  no  misgiving  when  we  are  told  that  there  is 
scarcely  a  single  moral  precept  of  Christianity  which  may 
not  be  paralleled  from  heathen  sources.  Those  truths 
were  revealed  to  the  Gentiles  by  the  same  light  which 

1  Rom.  ii.  14,  15. 
12 


178  THE   BIBLE 

slimes  on  us.  The  consummate  superiority  of  the  Scrip- 
ture over  the  other  Bibles  of  humanity  hes  in  the  fact  that 
it  sets  forth  to  us  the  Gospel  of  the  Eternal  Christ.  We 
should  rejoice  to  know  that  the  Divine  glory,  which  shines 
like  the  noonday  in  oui*  present  dispensation,  shot  many  a 
gleam  of  enlightenment  upon  distant  countries  and  ancient 
times.  And  from  these  analogous  revelations  of  History, 
Nature,  and  Conscience  we  may  learn  the  law  which  char- 
acterises that  fuller,  freer,  deeper,  more  explicit  revelation 
which  we  learn  from  Holy  Writ.  There  is  inspiration 
whenever  the  Spirit  of  God  makes  itseK  heard  in  the  heart 
of  man.  Enlightenment  is  not  final,  but  progressive.  It 
is  not  granted  once  and  again  and  then  withdrawn  for 
ever.  It  does  not  come  in  one  blaze  of  unbroken  splendour, 
but  in  scattered  rays  shining  amid  interspaces  of  cloud  and 
midnight.  It  does  not  come  with  shocks  of  overwhelming 
possession,  but  with  the  gradual  increase  of  the  dawn 
shining  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect  day.  After  all 
that  God  has  taught  us  respecting  Himself,  it  stiU  remains 
as  true  that  '  clouds  and  darkness  are  round  about  Him,' 
as  that '  righteousness  and  judgment  are  the  foundation  of 
His  throne.'  And  even  of  those  who  as  yet  know  not 
Christ,  we  are  told  that  at  last  the  nations  shall  come  to 
His  light  and  kings  to  the  brightness  of  His  rising. 

Although  the  Bible  has  been  to  mankind  a  boon  im- 
measurably precious,  and  though  it  contains  the  revelation 
of  the  Son  of  God,  yet  God  has  not  confined  His  messages 
to  its  writers.  '  Inspiration  is  the  eternal  act  by  which 
God,  imparting  Himself,  so  to  speak,  to  men,  manifests 
Himself  to  their  divine  nature ;'  and  God  can  do  this  and 
has  done  it,  and  that  for  ages,  without  any  aid  from  the 
wi'itten  word. 

Was  it  not  so  among  pagan  nations  1    To  them,  too, 


PAGANS  179 

virtue  was  possible,  because  they  were  faithful  to  the  best 
they  knew.  In  Bishop  Ken's  '  Hymnarium/  Thought  is 
led  by  Lazarus  through  the  unseen  world,  and 

'Know,'  Socrates  reply'd, 
*  I  for  the  one  true  God  a  martyr  dy'd ; 
I  knew  great  God  by  native  Light, 
And  Conscience  told  me  what  was  right.' 

We  do  not,  indeed,  hold  '  that  every  man  shall  be  saved  by 
the  law  or  sect  which  he  professeth,  so  that  he  be  diligent 
to  frame  his  life  according  to  that  law  and  the  light  of 
nature.'  For  '  Holy  Scripture  doth  set  out  unto  us  only 
the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  whereby  men  must  be  saved.'  ^ 
But  we  do  hold  that  by  the  name  of  Christ  multitudes  of 
the  heathen  are  saved  though  they  know  Him  not.  He  is 
found  of  them  that  sought  Him  not.  Such  is  the  truth 
which  the  saintly  Bishop  puts  into  the  mouth  of  the 
Athenian  sage, 

My  soul  with  miserere  left  my  clay, 
And,  as  I  rov'd  to  find  the  happy  way. 

An  Angel  brought  me  to  the  judgment  seat ; 
And  prostrate  at  God's  feet 
Taught  me  the  virtue  of  the  promised  Seed 
With  humble  confidence  to  plead. 

No  Gentiles  to  this  region  ever  came 

But  pardon  gained  by  that  and  by  no  other  name.^ 

Consider  the  history  of  Religion.  The  faith  which  is 
the  assurance  of  things  hoped  for,  the  test  of  things  not 
seen,  existed  for  ages  without  any  Scriptures.  Abel, 
Enoch,  Noah,  Abraham,  Isaac,  Jacob,  Moses,  Gideon, 
Barak,  the  judges  and  heroes  of  Israel— what  Bible  had 

1  Art.  xviii. 

2  Ken's  Hynmarium,  p.  131 ;  Dean  Plumptre's  Life  of  Ken,  11.  247. 


180  THE   BIBLE 

they  ?  Many  of  them  none  at  all.  And  what  Bible  had 
David  and  Solomon  and  the  early  kings  and  prophets,  and 
the  thousands  who  in  their  days  never  bowed  the  knee  to 
Baal  ?  Yet  all  these,  ha\ing  served  God  in  their  genera- 
tion, fell  on  sleep.  And  was  theii*  religious  life  less  deep 
than  that  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites  who,  in 
that  long  and  dreary  interval  in  which  the  living  voice  of 
proi^heey  had  ceased,  had  access  to  the  sacred  literature 
which  Ezra  and  his  successors  had  edited  f  But  they  used 
it  mainly  to  crush  the  essentials  of  mercy,  justice,  and 
truth,  and  glorify  the  ritualistic  trivialities  of  phylactery 
and  fringe,  till  their  religionism  brought  forth  its  natural 
empoisoned  fruit  in  the  spiritual  atrophy  which  led  them 
to  murder  the  Lord  of  Glory. 

And  if  the  religion  of  the  Hebrews  existed  anterior  to 
and  independently  of  the  Old  Testament,  so  did  Clu-istian- 
ity  exist  anterior  to  and  independently  of  the  New,  The 
early  Christians— those  in  the  first  century,  whose  glow  of 
enthusiasm  and  love  gave  the  first  impulse  to  the  evan- 
geUsation  of  the  world— had  no  Gospels  aud  no  Epistles. 
Their  exultation  and  exceeding  jo}^  in  the  midst  of  poverty 
and  persecution  were  maintained,  not  ]\y  written  records, 
but  by  the  constant  sense  of  Christ's  living  Presence. 
Even  in  the  second  century,  when  the  whole  New  Testa- 
ment existed,  years  elapsed  before  it  was  placed  on  the 
same  level  as  the  Old  Testament,  and  before  it  was  finally 
dissevered— as  being  sui  generis— from  other  Christian 
literature.  For  many  a  century  the  religious  life  was 
maintained  with  but  indirect  support  from  the  ivritten 
word.  The  Bible  was  hid  and  buried  in  dead  languages 
not  understanded  of  the  people,  from  whom  it  was  jealously 
kept  by  those  to  whose  pretensions  its  simplicity  was  fatal. 
When  they  did  possess  it,  but  few  could  read  it ;  and  there 


EARLY   CHRISTIANS  181 

is  abundant  evidence  that  even  to  the  generality  of  the 
clergy  alike  its  spirit  and  its  letter  were  unknown.  Great 
indeed  was  their  loss,  and  glorious  the  awakenment  at  the 
renascence,  when '  Greece  rose  from  the  dead  with  the  New 
Testament  in  her  hand ; '  but  their  loss  was  not  such  as 
whoUy  to  cripple  the  religious  life. 

So  that,  to  quote  from  a  sermon  by  John  WaUis,  one  of 
the  clerks  of  the  Westminster  Assembly,  and  part-author 
of  the  Shorter  Catechism,  '  The  Scriptures  in  themselves 
are  rather  a  Lanthorn  than  a  Light ;  they  shine  indeed,  but 
it  is  alieno  hnnine;  it  is  not  their  own  but  a  borrowed  light. 
It  is  God  which  is  tlie  true  light,  that  shines  to  us  in  the 
Scriptures ;  and  they  have  no  other  light  in  them,  but  as 
they  represent  to  us  something  of  God,  and  as  they  exhibit 
and  hold  forth  God  to  us.  Who  is  the  true  light  that  "  en- 
lighteueth  every  man  that  comes  into  the  world."  It  is  a 
light  then,  as  it  represents  God  unto  us,  who  is  the  origi- 
nal light.  It  transmits  some  rays,  some  beams  of  the 
Divine  uatui-e ;  but  they  are  refracted,  or  else  we  should 
not  be  able  to  behold  them.  They  lose  much  of  their 
original  lustre  by  passing  through  this  medium,  and 
appear  not  so  glorious  to  us  as  they  are  in  themselves. 
They  represent  God's  simplicity  obliquated  and  refracted 
by  reason  of  many  inadequate  conceptions ;  God  conde- 
scending to  the  weakness  of  our  capacity  to  speak  to  us  in 
our  own  dialect.'  ^ 

The  Bible,  when  our  spirits  bear  witness  to  its  divinest 
teachings,  is  our  chief  guide  to  the  truths  of  which  religion 
is  composed ;  but  to  speak  of  it  as  being  itself  '  a  religion ' 
is  a  loose  form  of  speech,  and  to  say  that  it  is  '  the  ouly 
religion'  of  any  body  of  Christians  is  not  true  in  any 
intelligible  sense, 

1  Quoted  by  Briggs,  The  Bible,  the  Church,  ajid  Reason. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

MISINTERPRETATION  OF  SCRIPTURE. 

'  He  that  is  spiritual  judgeth  all  things,  and  he  himself  is  judged 
of  no  man.' — 1  Cor.  ii.  15. 

'Lacte  gypsum  male  miscetur.'— Iren^us. 

'It  is  the  province  of  reason  to  judge  of  the  morality  of  Scrip- 
ture.'—Butler,  Analogy,  II.  iii.  26. 

'Legimus  scripturam  omnem  cedifieationi  habilem  divinitus  inspi- 
rari.'— Tert.  De  Cult.  Fern.  ii.  3. 

Nothing  but  blessing  has  ever  sprung  from  the  rigJit  use 
and  true  understanding  of  the  Bible ;  nothing  but  disaster 
from  those  superstitious  and  perverted  uses  of  it  which 
spring  from  false  methods  of  regarding  it. 

Let  us  take  a  few  instances,  of  which  neither  can  the 
truth  be  denied  nor  the  significance  overlooked  by  any- 
fair-minded  inquirer. 

1.  I  have  already  alluded  to  the  wars  of  extermination 
enjoined  upon  the  Israehtes  by  Moses,  by  Joshua,  by 
Samuel,  and  by  other  great  Prophets ;  and  the  principle 
which  underlies  them  is  recognised  in  the  Psalms,  the  Book 
of  Jeremiah,  the  Book  of  Esther,  and  other  passages  of  the 
Old  Testament.! 

1  See  ante,  p.  82.  Deut.  xx.  16:  'Thou  shalt  save  nothing  alive 
that  breatheth.'  1  Sam.  xv.  3  :  'Slay  both  man  and  woman,  infant 
and  suckling,  ox  and  sheep,  camel  and  ass.' 

182 


WARS  OF  EXTERMINATION  183 

Yet  tlie  unsophisticated  conscience  of  mankind  revolts 
with  horror  from  the  cold-blooded  massacre  of  innocent 
men  and  women  and  children— the  sick,  the  aged,  the 
harmless,  and  the  miserable— which  a  war  of  extermination 
involves.^  The  Israelites  never  thoroughly  obeyed  these 
commands ;  the  instances  were  very  few  in  which  they  even 
attempted  to  do  so.  So  far  were  the  Canaanites  from  be- 
ing exterminated  that  they  long  continued  to  be  the  recog- 
nised traders  of  Palestine,  so  that '  Cauaanite '  became  the 
eciuivalent  of  '  merchant.'  The  Canaanites  even  possessed 
a  recognised  mercantile  quarter  of  their  own  in  Jerusalem 
itself,  known  as  Maktesh  or  'the  Mortar.'-  The  sense  of 
I)ity  is  deeply  implanted  by  God  in  human  natm'e.  Any 
king  or  general  who  should  act  in  these  days  as  we  are  told 
that  Moses  and  Samuel  ordered  the  Israelites  to  act  in  the 
name  of  God,  would  be  overwhelmed  by  the  execration  of 
mankind. 

i.  But  it  has  been  urged  that  the  moral  standard  of  the 
Jews  was  so  low  as  not  to  be  shocked  by  commands  to 
commit  savage  deeds,  and  that  the  aborigines  of  Canaan 
were  so  abnormally  wicked  that  their  extermination  was 
morally  necessary.  Is  there  any  proof  that  they  were 
more  wicked  than  multitudes  of  nations  have  been— even 
nations  professedly  Christian,  and  even  in  modern  times  ? 

1  '  We  should  feel  it  impossible  that  God  would  really  command 
us  to  do  such  acts  now,  whatever  commands  He  may  have  given  in 
former  ages'  (Mozley,  Lectures  on  the  Old  Testament,  p.  85).  'The 
acts  to  which  we  refer  are  not  only  contrary  to  the  law  of  love,  but 
also  to  our  idea  of  justice'  {Id.  p.  85). 

-  See  nos.  xii.  7 ;  Zcph.  i.  11  (Heb.) ;  Job  xli.  6 ;  Prov.  xxxi.  24. 

3  This  sophistry  is  found  in  St.  Augustine.  'Digni  ergo  erant  et 
isti  quibus  talia  juberentur  ct  illi  qui  tcdia  paterentur^  (Aug.  c.  Faust. 
xxii.  72).  It  is  thus  that  Dante  defends  his  faithlessness  to  Friar 
Alberigo.     '  E  cortesiafu  lui  esser  villauo'  {Inf.  xxxiii.  150). 


184  THE   BIBLE 

Were  they  in  any  appreciable  sense  more  wicked  or  even 
(cii'cumstances  considered)  so  wicked  as  Rome  was  for 
centuries  together  in  the  days  of  the  mediaeval  Papacy,  or 
London  amid  the  orgies  of  the  Restoration  ? 

I  have  always  been  astonished  that  the  masculine  intelli- 
gence of  such  a  man  as  Dr.  Arnold  should  have  been  de- 
luded by  this  untenable  pretence.  '  The  Israelites'  sword,' 
he  says,  '  in  the  bloodiest  executions  wrought  a  work  of 
mercy  for  all  the  countries  of  the  earth  to  the  very  end  of 
the  world.  They  preserved  unhurt  the  seed  of  eternal 
life.'^  The  statement  is  hardly  true  to  fact;  but  in 
any  case  are  we  justified  in  doing  evil  that  good  may 
come  ? 

ii.  Again,  men  have  urged  the  sophistic  plea  that  as  God 
might  have  employed  the  whirlwind  or  the  famine  to  de- 
stroy idolaters,  so  He  might  have  seen  fit  to  order  their 
destruction  by  human  agency. 

But  man  in  no  way  resembles  those  vast,  dull,  inanimate 
forces,  '  stern  as  fate,  inexorable  as  tyranny,  merciless  as 
death,  which  have  no  ear  to  hear,  no  heart  for  pity,  no  arm 
to  save.'  The  agencies  of  nature  are  irresponsible  and 
mechanical;  the  whirlwind  and  the  pestilence  have  no 
conscience;  but  God  Himself  has  created  in  the  soul  of 
man  the  sense  of  pity  and  love,  which  are  likest  HimseK  of 
all  the  elements  which  He  has  implanted.  Dead  agencies 
cannot  be  a  model  or  exemplar  to  man.  Man  could  not, 
without  inconceivable  wickedness,  take  upon  him  to 
imitate  the  destruction  wrought  by  the  hurricane,  or 
excuse  himself  for  deeds  of  ravin  and  brutality  by  plead- 
ing that  they  might  have  been  accomplished  by  the  tiger 
or  the  ape. 

In  what  sense,  then,  can  God  ever  have  commanded  men 

1  Arnold,  Sermojis,  ii.  390. 


WARS  OF  EXTERMINATION  185 

to  commit  acts  which  the  human  conscience,  expressly 
because  it  is  illuminated  by  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God,  justly 
brands  as  revolting  and  horrible  ? 

It  is  no  answer  to  say  that  this  is  a  mystery  beyond  our 
ken ;  that  we  must  not  be  wise  above  what  is  written.  It 
is  true  that  whatever  answer  we  give  must  touch  upon  a 
mystery.  *  All  things,'  said  the  old  aphorism  of  theology, 
'  end  in  a  mystery,'  and  that  mystery  is  the  existence  of 
evil.  We  are  not,  however,  peering  into  mysteries,  but  are 
seeking  for  practical  guidance  as  to  the  eternal  and  un- 
changeable ■will  of  God. 

Can  God— Who  is  of  purer  eyes  than  to  behold  iniquity, 
and  "wdth  Whom  is  no  variableness— ever  have  commanded 
man  to  commit  crimes  which  are  hateful  to  the  enlightened 
conscience,  and  which  we  now  know  to  be  abhorrent  from 
His  own  nature  ? '  Are  we  to  regard  the  laws  of  right  and 
^vrong  as  Eternal  Facts  or  as  arbitrary  mandates?  Or 
at  the  best  only  as  flexible  rules  which,  like  the  leaden 
measure  of  Lesbos,  can  be  bent  and  unbent  at  will  ? 

Have  we  not  reached  a  point  of  moral  elevation  as  high 
as  even  Plato  had  reached  nearly  two  millenniums  and  a 
half  ago?  The  poems  of  Homer  were  the  Bible  of  the 
Greeks,  yet  Plato  said  that  '  God  is  simple  and  true  both 
in  word  and  deed,  neither  is  He  changed  Himself,  nor  does 
He  deceive  others,  neither  by  \'isions  nor  discourses  nor 
the  pomp  of  signs.     Therefore,'  he  continues,  '  when  any 

^  Canon  Mozley  pleads  that  'these  commands  had  no  resistance 
from  the  moral  sense ;  they  did  not  look  unnatural  to  the  ancient 
Jew,'  &c.  (I.e.  p.  63).  Neither  did  they  to  the  Thugs,  who  likewise 
regarded  it  as  a  religious  duty  to  commit  murder.  But  does  this 
account  for  a  positive  command?  God  may  condescend  to  man's 
imperfections,  but  can  we  conceive  of  Him  as  ordering  immoral 
acts? 


18G  THE  BIBLE 

one  alleges  such  things  about  the  gods  we  must  show 
disapproval.'  ^ 

Bishop  Butler  says, '  If  it  were  commanded  to  cultivate 
the  principles  and  act  from  the  spirit  of  treachery,  ingrati- 
tude, cruelty:  the  command  would  not  alter  the  nature 
of  the  case,  or  the  action,  in  any  of  these  instances.  But 
it  is  quite  otherwise  in  precepts  which  require  only  the 
doing  of  an  external  action.' -  Can  any  one  be  content 
with  this  ?  Armenian  atrocities  are  only  external  actions. 
Are  they  right  because  fanatical  Turks  may  think  them 
right? 

Can  anything  be  said  but  this— which  is  practically  the 
answer  given  by  Canon  Mozley  in  his  '  Ruling  Ideas  in 
the  Early  Ages'— that  the  Israelites  knew  no  better;  that 
they  and  their  rulers,  in  thus  butchering  even  the  women 
and  infants  of  their  enemies,  thought  ignorantly  that  they 
did  God  service  ?  It  required  but  the  softening  influence 
of  time  and  civilisation  to  obliterate  in  the  best  minds 
those  fierce  misconceptions.  When  the  King  of  Israel  saw 
the  deluded  Syrians  safely  in  his  power  in  his  own  capital, 
he  eagerly  exclaimed  to  the  Prophet  Elisha,  '  My  father, 
shall  I  smite  them  ?  Shall  I  smite  them  ? '  What  was  the 
Prophet's  answer  ?  Was  it  a  rebuke  to  him  for  even  hesi- 
tating to  slay  the  enemies  of  the  Lord  and  of  his  people  ? 
On  the  contrary,  Elisha  said, '  Thou  shalt  not  smite  them : 
wouldest  thou  smite  those  whom  thou  hast  taken  captive 
with  thy  sword  and  with  thy  bow?  set  bread  and  water 
before  them,  that  they  may  eat  and  drink,  and  go  to  their 
master.'  ^ 

Beyond  that  we  are  not  able  to  go.     The  difficulty  which 

1  Plato,  Bejyublic,  ii.  ad  finem.  He  is  specially  objecting  to  du- 
plicity being  predicated  of  the  gods. 

2  Analogy,  H.  iii.  27.  »  2  Kings  vi.  21,  22. 


KIND  LEGISLATION  187 

remains  unsolved  is  not  that  such  commands  should  be 
attributed  to  God  on  the  page  of  Scriptui'e— which  is  no 
difficulty  if  parts  of  those  ancient  records  only  reflect  a 
moral  knowledge  which  Christ  Himself  has  taught  us  to 
have  been  ignorance,  and  a  sj)irit  which  He  has  told  us 
was  alien  from  His  spu'it— but  that  a  people  whom  God 
had  partially  enlightened  should  have  supposed  that  such 
deeds  could  be  in  accordance  with  His  will,  and  that  they 
could  most  acceptably  pray  to  Him  with  hands  red-wet 
with  the  blood  of  innocents. 

'  If  a  difficulty  meets  thee  which  thou  canst  not  solve,' 
said  Luther,  '  so  let  it  go.'  And  he  said  also,  '  I  cannot 
prevent  the  birds  of  the  air  from  flying  about  my  head, 
but  I  can  prevent  them  from  building  their  nests  in  my 
hair.' 

We  must  not,  however,  let  such,  jjassages  blind  us  to  the 
general  fact  that,  as  a  rule,  in  the  Old  Testament,  as  in  the 
New,  love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law.  In  spite  of  imper- 
fections due  to  rude  times  and  hard  hearts,  there  is  a 
singular  tenderness  in  many  parts  of  the  Mosaic  code. 
There  is  tenderness  to  slaves,  whom  in  some  ways  it 
sheltered  from  oppression ;  ^  to  the  accidental  homicide, 
for  whom  it  provided  the  cities  of  refuge ;  ^  to  the  poor, 
whom  it  protected  from  cruel  usury ;  ^  to  the  de^wessed 
toilers,  whose  lands  it  restored  in  the  Sabbatic  year ;  *  to 
the  destitute,  in  whose  interest  it  forbade  the  hard  strip- 
ping of  the  fields,  the  mean  exhaustion  of  the  gleaned 
vineyards,  or  the  niggardly  beating  of  the  topmost  olive 
boughs.5  There  is  tenderness  to  the  dumb  animals.  To 
show  that  God  cared  even  for  the  falling  sparrow  and  the 

1  Deut.  V.  14,  15,  xii.  19,  &c.  2  Num.  xxxv.  13,  15. 

3  Deut.  xxiii.  19,  xxiv.  6,  &c.  *  Levit.  xxv.  4,  &c. 

5  Deut.  xxiv.  20. 


188  THE  BIBLE 

dumb  cattle,  the  great  legislator  was  bidden  to  lay  down 
a  rule  that  the  heedless  boy  should  not  take  the  mother- 
bird  when  he  took  from  the  nest  her  callow  young  ;i  that 
the  oxen  were  not  to  be  muzzled  when  they  trod  out  the 
corn  ;2  and  that  the  ox  and  ass  were  not  to  be  yoked  to- 
gether at  the  plow,  lest  the  burden  should  fall  on  the 
smaller  and  weaker  beast.^  Even  the  thrice-repeated  rule, 
'  Thou  shalt  not  seethe  the  kid  in  its  mother's  milk,'  *  be- 
sides the  deep  warning  which  it  conveys  of  the  horrible 
sin  of  destroying  human  beings  by  means  of  their  best 
affections,  was  rightly  interpreted  as  a  reprobation  of  un- 
feeling cruelty,  because  it  looks  like  a  hard  mockery,  an 
offence  against  the  mercifulness  of  nature,  to  seethe  the 
youngling  in  the  very  milk  which  nature  had  designed  for 
its  sustenance ;  for  '  God's  tender  mercies  are  over  all  His 
works.'  ^ 

One  fact  ought  to  be  plain,  which  is,  that  if  the  eternal 
laws  of  morality  and  love  are  to  be  regarded  as  flexible 
and  accidental  things ;  if  any  human  being  could  ever  be 
blessed  for  taking  innocent  little  children— children  differ- 
ing in  no  respect  from  those  whom  Jesus  loved  and  took 
in  His  arms  and  blessed— and  dashing  them  against  the 
stones; —if  indeed  such  commands  and  sentiments  were 
ever,  in  any  sense,  a  word  of  God  to  those  savage  tribes, 
they  are  in  no  sense  a  rule  for  us.  We  judge  of  them 
precisely  as  we  believe  that  Christ  would  have  judged  of 
them,  and  as  He  has  taught  us  to  do  by  the  Spirit  which 
He  has  given  us.  Whatsoever  things  are  real,  whatsoever 
things  are  lawful,  whatsoever  things  are  pure,  lovely,  and 
of  good  report— whatsoever  things  are  truly  excellent  and 

1  Deut.  xxii.  6.  2  Dent.  xxv.  4.  3  Deut.  xxii.  10. 

*  Ex.  xxiii.  19,  xxxiv.  26 ;  Deut.  xiv.  21. 
5  Ps.  cxlv.  9 ;  compare  Lev.  xxii.  28. 


VERACITY  189 

stand  in  harmony  with  our  best  reason  and  minister  to 
our  highest  development— those  alone,  and  not  the  things 
which  bring  forth  evil  fruit,  are  the  word  of  God  to  us. 

In  such  things  the  Bible  abounds;  they  glisten  and 
shine  forth  in  myriads  as  the  sand-gi*ains  on  the  seashore 
when  the  sunbeam  strikes  themj  and  no  advance  in 
mental  culture,  no  deepening  and  broadening  of  the  natu- 
ral sciences,  no  expansion  of  the  human  mind  can  ever 
go  beyond,  or  can  ever  supersede  them  !  ^  '  They,'  said 
Kant, '  are  always  in  the  service  of  God  whose  actions  are 
moral.' 

2.  And  if  we  form  this  judgment  respecting  the  Law  of 
Mercy,  we  come  to  a  similar  conclusion  respecting  the 
Law  of  Truthfulness. 

We  hold  that  God  is  a  God  of  Truth ;  that  He  desires 
truth  in  the  inward  parts;  that  whatever  view  we  may 
choose  to  take  of  the  unreprehended  deceitfulness  of 
Abraham,  Isaac,  Jacob,  Samuel,  David,  and  other  charac- 
ters in  the  Old  Testament,  and  however  we  may  choose  to 
interpret  the  fact  that  they  may  seem  to  represent  God  in 
some  cases  as  having  commanded  any  form  of  dissimula- 
tion, we  can  only  read  such  passages  historically,  and  no 
sanction  of  apparent  unveracity,  or  Jesuitical  tampering 
with  truth,  can  ever  be  a  word  of  God  to  us.  Here  again 
the  unsophisticated  conscience  of  mankind  says  even  in 
the  days  of  Homer, 

Who  dares  think  one  thing  and  another  tell, 
My  soul  detests  him  as  the  gates  of  hell. 

In  the  New  Testament  at  any  rate  the  law  of  truthfulness 
is  laid  down  undeviatingly  and  absolutely,  and  to  quote 

1  See  Goethe,  Conversations,  March  11,  1832. 


190  THE   BIBLE 

any  passage  in  the  Bible  as  an  excuse  for  falseness  is  a 
gross  misinterpretation  if  not  of  this  or  that  passage,  yet 
of  the  Bible  as  a  whole. 

Now  turn  to  the  history  of  the  Albigensian  Crusades 
and  let  us  realise  the  frightful  mischief  of  putting  the 
Bible  to  wrong  uses,  as  we  consider  the  deep  damnation 
of  deeds  of  deceit  and  sanguinary  ferocity  committed  in 
the  name  of  Holy  Writ.  When  Innocent  III.  was  giving 
to  Arnold,  Abbot  of  Citeaux,  his  infamous  advice  to  entrap 
the  Count  of  Toulouse  to  his  ruin,  he  appealed  to  Scrip- 
tural authority  both  for  his  falsity  and  his  ruthlessness. 
'  We  advise  you,'  he  said, '  to  use  cunning  in  your  dealings 
with  the  Count  of  Toulouse,  treating  Mm  tvitJi  a  wise  dis- 
simulation that  the  other  heretics  matj  he  more  easily  de- 
stroyed.^  i  '  Slay  them  aU,'  said  Arnold  of  Citeaux  to  the 
brutal  Albigensian  Crusaders ;  '  God  ^^dll  discriminate  His 
own.'  We  look  on  the  Crusades  in  the  light  of  poetry  and 
romance ;  we  admire  the  meekness  of  Godfrey  of  Bouillon 
in  refusing  to  wear  a  crown  of  gold  where  his  Saviour  had 
worn  a  crown  of  thorns.  But  how  did  the  Crusaders  be- 
have on  their  journey  in  the  bmtal  massacre  of  defenceless 
and  unoffending  Jews?  And  how  did  they  behave  in 
Jerusalem  itseK?  Happy  the  innocent  women  and  chil- 
dren whose  heads  they  swept  off  with  one  stroke  of  the 
sword,  or  whom  they  stabbed  to  the  heart  at  a  single 
blow !  But  besides  these  murders  they  snatched  infants 
from  their  mothers'  arms  and  hurled  them  on  the  stones, 
or  with  horrid  mutilation  dashed  their  heads  against 
sharp  angles ;  and  they  made  men  and  boys  marks  for  then- 

1  Ep.  232.  '  According  to  the  canons,  faith  was  not  to  be  kept  with 
him  who  keeps  not  faith  with  God '  (liegesta,  xi.  26 ;  Lea,  Hist,  of  the 
Inquisition,  i.  228).  On  the  systematic  deceit  used  to  extort  con- 
fessions see  id.  p.  416. 


VERACITY  191 

archers,  shooting  at  them  till  they  leapt  down  the  preci- 
pice ;  and  others  they  tortured  inconceivably ;  and  others 
they  bm-nt  alive  at  slow  fires.  And  what  was  the  plea  for 
the  commission  of  these  and  other  execrable  atrocities  ?  The 
savage  commands  to  exterminate  said  to  have  been  given  by 
Moses  to  the  rude  serfs  who  had  fled  from  Egypt  into  the  wil- 
derness !  Priests  also  found  an  imaginary  consecration  of 
dishonesty  in  their  own  ignorant  misuse  of  some  fragments 
of  Scriptm-e !  And  these  were  manipulated  to  supersede 
the  plain  unexceptional  rule  of  the  Gospel :  '  Wherefore,  put- 
ting away  lying,  let  eveiy  man  speak  truth  to  his  neighbour.' 
When  we  read  of  such  crimes  and  horrors  and  find  re- 
ligious teachers  giving  their  sanction  to  them  on  grounds 
of  Holy  Writ,  we  can  only  deplore  so  gross  a  confusion  of 
the  voices  of  cruel  bigotry  and  usurping  ambition  with 
the  voice  of  God.     But 

The  devil  can  cite  Scripture  for  hi3  purpose. 
An  evil  soul  pi'oducing  holy  witness 
Is  like  a  villain  with  a  smiling  cheek, 
A  goodly  apple  rotten  at  the  heart. 

In  some  of  their  deadliest  sins  against  the  human  race 
corrupted  and  cruel  Chiu'ches  have  ever  been  most  lavish 
in  their  appeals  to  Scriptui-e.  But  no  sophistry  can  alter 
our  conviction  that  the  laws  of  mercy  and  truth  are  un- 
changeable and  eternal ;  and  even  a  heathen  poet  could  say, 

ov  ydp  Ti  vvv  ye  KaxOH,  o-^"^'  "£'  'kote 
C5  ravra  KoiiSelg  oldev  e^  6tov  (jidvti. 

3.  Take,  again,  the  case  of  witchcraft. 
We  find  in  Ex.  xxii.  18  the  verse, '  Thou  shalt  not  suffer 
a  witch  to  live.'  ^ 

1  Compare  Lev.  xix.  31,  xx.  27;  Deut.  xviii.  10,  11;  2  Kings  zvii. 
17 ;  Is.  ii.  6 ;  Mic.  v.  12. 


192  THE  BIBLE 

It  may  be  said  with  truth  that  the  meaning  of  the  He- 
brew word  rendered  '  witch '  is  of  uncertain  significance,^ 
and  '  sorcerers '  and  '  witches '  may  merely  be  regarded  by 
the  Mosaic  Law  as  '  impious  and  nefarious  impostors.'  If 
this  had  been  understood  'the  history  of  the  Christian 
Church  would  not  have  been  disgraced  by  the  fatal  absur- 
dities of  witch  trials.' 

Yet  it  is  plain  that  in  the  days  of  Moses,  and  for  thou- 
sands of  years  afterwards,  it  was  universally  believed  that 
human  beings  might  by  unlawful  means  have  intercourse 
with  fiends  and  demons,  and  use  the  supernatural  power 
so  acquired  for  the  injmy  of  their  fellows. 

The  belief  is  now  all  but  universally  abandoned.  AU 
pretensions  to  witchcraft,  and  all  belief  in  it,  are  treated 
as  proofs  of  ignorant  superstition.  There  is  not  a  court 
in  any  civilised  and  Protestant  country  which  would  not 
cover  itself  with  execration  if  it  executed  a  woman  on  the 
ground  of  her  being  a  witch. 

Yet  how  frightful  has  been  the  injustice,  how  terrible 
the  agony  caused  to  hundreds  of  thousands  of  hapless 
human  beings,  by  so  entu*ely  mistaking  the  true  nature 
and  objects  of  the  Bible  as  to  treat  that  verse  of  Exodus 
as  though  it  involved  the  revelation  of  a  fact  and  the  in- 
culcation of  a  present  duty ! 

The  law  as  a  Jewish  law  may  have  been  justifiable,  or  at 
the  lowest  excusable.  Even  if  it  had  its  roots  in  ignorance 
and  superstition,  the  attempt  to  consult  demons,  and  the 
malefic  practices  connected  with  such  an  attempt,  may,  in 
the  more  ruthless  system  of  rude  days,  have  deserved  death. 

^  riQK'SO.  The  LXX  render  it  by  ^apfiuKSg,  and  the  Vulgate  male- 
ficits,  in  Ex.  vii.  11.  See  Kaliseh,  Exodus,  p.  427.  This  text  was  'the 
war-ery  of  the  clergy  against  myriads  of  aged  and  defenceless 
women.' 


WITCHES  193 

But  to  assume  that  this  dubious  fragment  of  old  legis- 
lation proved  the  existence  of  witches  as  understood  in 
the  middle  ages,  and  that  God  commanded  the  infliction 
of  death  on  all  the  poor  wretches  who  under  the  agonies 
of  torture  confessed  to  being  witches,  was,  again,  a  gross 
misuse  of  the  Bible,  a  gross  misinterpretation  of  the  piu'- 
poses  for  which  it  was  intended. 

In  1437  Pope  Eugenius  IV.  stirred  up  inquisitors  against 
witches,  especiallj'  such  as  raised  storms,  and  a  similar 
edict  was  issued  in  1465. 

In  1484  Pope  Innocent  VIII.  sent  a  Dominican  monk 
as  commissioner  to  extu'pate  witchcraft.  His  name  was 
Sprenger,  and  he  was  the  author  of  a  frightful  book  on 
sorcery,  which  has  gained  him  the  name  of  Malleus  Male- 
ficarum}  This  bull  of  Pope  Innocent  Ylll.— Summis 
desiderantes  (1484)— has  the  melancholy  pre-eminence  (ex- 
cept that  which  commanded  the  crusades  to  exterminate 
the  pious  Albigenses)  of  lia\'ing  cost  more  torrents  of  inno- 
cent blood  than  any  other.  Thousands  of  women,  young 
and  old,  were  terrified  and  tortured  into  preposterous 
confessions,  and  as  thej-  writhed  on  the  rack  were  pre- 
pared to  avouch  anj'thing.  The  Jesuits  were  specially 
active  in  these  homble  proceedings.  Remigius,  in  his 
Bmmonolatreia  (1595),  boasted  that  he  had  sent  900  to  death 

1  He  gives  a  specimen  of  his  learning  by  his  derivation  of  Diabo- 
lus  from  *dia,'  two,  and  'bolus,'  a  pill,  because  the  devil  makes  but 
one  pill  of  soul  and  body  !  or  the  name  may  mean  (for  Sprenger  is 
liberal  of  his  etymologies)  clausm  crydstido,  or  dcjluois,  because  lie 
fell  from  heaven  !  He  derives  malcficicndo  from  male  de  fide  scuti- 
endo— so  that  all  heretics  are  potential  sorcerers,  and  should  be 
burnt !  See  Michelet,  Renaissance,  p.  128 ;  Lea,  Hist,  of  the  Inqui- 
sition, ii.  421,  iii.  443.  Dr.  A.  D.  White  (JJ'arfai-c  of  Science)  re- 
fers to  Soldan's  Gesch.  d.  Hexenprozessen  and  Roskoff's  Gesch.  d. 
Teufels. 
13 


194  THE  BIBLE 

for  storm-raising  by  witchcraft  in  fifteen  years.^  Seven 
thousand  so-called  '  witches '  are  said  to  have  been  burnt  at 
Treves ;  1,000  in  a  single  year  at  Como ;  800  at  Wiirzburg. 

The  growth  of  knowledge  has  made  it  certain  that  not 
one  of  these  miserable  victims  can  have  been  guilty  of 
the  crimes  laid  to  their  charge  by  blundering  terror  and 
deadly  superstition. 

Sir  Matthew  Hale  in  1665  said  to  an  English  jury  who 
condemned  two  poor  wretches  to  be  burnt,  'that  there 
were  such  things  as  witches  he  made  no  doubt  at  all,  for 
first  the  Scriptui'es  had  afiirmed  so  much.'  ^ 

Wesley  said  that  to  give  up  witchcraft  was  to  give  up 
the  Bible.^  The  belief  in  witchcraft  is  absolutely  dead 
and  yet  to  Christian  hearts  the  Bible  is  as  infinitely  dear  as 
it  ever  was.  We  disbelieve  in  witches,  but  can  stiU  say  of 
the  Bible,  with  Sii*  Matthew  Hale, '  It  is  a  book  fuU  of  light 
and  wisdom,  and  will  make  you  wise  to  eternal  Life,'  and 
with  Wesley  that  therein  God  teaches  us  the  way  to  heaven. 

4.  Again,  take  the  case  of  religious  persecution. 

The  days  are  not  far  distant  when  it  was  regarded  as  a 
positive  duty  to  put  men  to  death  for  their  religious  opin- 

^  See  Dr.  A.  D.  Wliite,  'Meteorology'  {Popular  Science  Monthly, 
July,  August,  1887,  New  York). 

2  He  went  on  to  say  that  '  the  wisdom  of  all  nations  had  provided 
laws  against  such  persons,  which  is  an  argument  of  their  confidence 
of  such  a  crime.'  No  doubt;  but  (1)  their  'confidence  of  such  a 
crime '  was  a  baseless  error,  and  (2)  in  most  cases  they  foimded  it  on 
the  misuse  of  Scripture. 

3  "Wesley,  Journals,  pp.  602,  713.  Parr's  Works,  iv.  18 ;  Buckle, 
Hist,  of  Civilisation,  i.  334 ;  Michelet,  La  Sorciere,  p.  425 ;  Lecky, 
Hist,  of  Rationalism,  i.  1-150:  'So  late  as  1716  a  woman  and  her 
daughter  of  nine  years  old  were  hanged  at  Huntingdon  for  raising 
storms  by  witchcraft.  In  Germany  no  fewer  than  100,000  women  and 
children  are  said  to  have  suffered  a  cruel  death  under  the  stupid  and 
ferocious  persecution  of  witches. 


RELIGIOUS  PERSECUTION  195 

ions,  and  this  horrible  offence  against  the  free  conscience 
of  humanity,  this  '  storming  of  the  very  citadel  of  heaven,' 
was  defended  by  the  Old  Testament  examples  of  Elijah 
and  others,  in  spite  of  our  Lord's  distinct  teacliing  that 
the  Elijah-spirit  was  far  different  from  the  Spirit  of  the 
Christ.  It  is  true  that  one  or  two  '  texts '  of  the  New 
Testament  were  impressed  into  the  same  odious  ser\dce. 
Scraps  of  texts  and  shreds  of  metaphor— paraboUcal,  ir- 
relevant, entirely  wrenched  from  their  context  and  real 
significance— were  constantly  on  the  lips  of  men  like 
Torquemada  and  Innocent  IV.  and  Alexander  VI.  The 
two  f  avoiu'ite  ones  were  '  Constrain  them  to  come  in ' '  and 
'  Gather  up  the  tares  in  bundles  and  bui'n  them.'  The  first 
was  made  responsible  for  the  use  of  violence  to  compel  men 
to  confess  what  they  held  to  be  lies,  and  to  worship  what 
they  regarded  as  idols ;  the  second  was  considered  as  a 
sufficient  justification  for  the  torture  used  against  the  in- 
nocent by  the  familiars  of  the  Inquisition.  By  virtue  of 
texts  hke  these  such  enemies  of  the  human  race  as  Fulk 
of  Toulouse  were  enabled  to  combine  the  garb  and  lan- 
guage of  priests  with  'the  temper  and  trade  of  execu- 
tioners.'   But,  as  Shakespeare  complained  so  bitterly, 

In  religion 
What  damned  error  but  some  sober  brow 
Will  bless  it  and  approve  it  with  a  text, 
Hiding  the  grossness  with  fair  ornament? 

1  Augustine  seems  responsible  for  the  first  gross  misuse  of  this 
fragmentary  clause  from  a  parable,  Ep.  xciii.  16  (see  my  Lives  of  the 
Fathers,  ii.  400).  His  earlier  and  truer  opinion  was  in  favour  of 
toleration.  See  0pp.  viii.  151a.  'With  shame  and  soitow  we  hear 
from  Augustine  himself  that  fatal  axiom  whicli  impiously  arrayed 
cruelty  in  the  garb  of  Christian  charity'  (Milmau,  Lat.  Christ,  i.  127). 
See  0pp.  ii.  230  ;  iii.  382. 


196  THE  BIBLE 

This  sanction  of  cruelty  to  enforce  current  opinion  was 
entirely  alien  from  true  Christianity.  Wlien  the  fiery 
disciples  said  to  Christ  that '  they  had  seen  one  casting  out 
devils  in  His  name  and  they  forbade  him  because  he  fol- 
loweth  not  after  us/  Christ  said  at  once, '  Forbid  him  not/ 
and  '  He  that  is  not  against  us  is  with  us.'  The  principle 
on  which  the  early  Christians  acted  was  expressed  in  the 
motto  ^  Force  is  hateful  to  GoiV  Lactantius,  Tertullian, 
and  other  early  Chi-istian  writers  had  emphatically  stated 
the  principle  that  religion  was  not  a  thing  which  could  be 
coerced.  '  It  is  no  part  of  religion/  said  Tertullian,  '  to 
compel  religion.'  ^ 

The  fii'st  blood  of  Christians  ever  shed  by  Christians 
on  the  ground  of  religion  was  that  of  the  learned  and 
pious  Priscilhan,  Bishop  of  Avila,  and  of  his  followers. 
The  execution  was  ordered  by  the  usurper  Maximus,  whose 
hands  were  red  with  the  blood  of  the  innocent  and  charm- 
ing Gratian ;  but  the  instigators  of  the  crime  were  the 
two  Spanish  bishops,  Ithacius  and  Idacius.  Yet  no  sooner 
was  the  crime  consummated  than  the  two  saintliest  prelates 
of  the  day,  St.  Ambrose  of  Milan  and  St.  Martin  of  Tours, 
raised  their  voices  in  indignant  reprobation  of  the  crime. 
They  refused  to  communicate  with  Maximus  or  his  epis- 
copal advisers,  and  their  sentiments  were  confirmed  by 
every  Christian  bishop  to  whom  the  dark  deed  became 
known.  But  in  these  days  the  Inquisition— that  ex- 
ecrable invasion  of  the  indefeasible  rights  of  mankind 
—is  toasted  by  Madrid  professors,  openly  eulogised  by 
Dominicans  in  the  pulpit  of  Notre-Dame,  and  is  still  de- 

1  Tert.  ad  Scaj).  2 :  '  Huinani  juris  et  naturalis  potestatis  est  uni- 
ctiiquo  quod  putaverit  colere,  nee  alii  obest  aut  pi-odest  alterius 
religio.  Sed  nee  religionis  est  cogere  religionem,  quae  sponte  sus- 
cipi  debeat,  non  vi.' 


RELIGIOUS   PERSECUTION  197 

fended  in  the  controversial  writings  of  the  Romish  hier- 
archy !  ^ 

From  Augustine's  days  down  to  those  of  Luther  scarcely 
one  voice  was  raised  in  favour,  I  will  not  say  of  tolerance, 
but  even  of  abstaining  from  fire  and  bloodshed  in  support 
of  enforced  uniformity.  But  Luther  boldly  proclaimed 
that  '  thoughts  are  toll-free.'  '  Heresy,'  he  said,  '  is  a 
spiritual  thing  which  cannot  be  hewn  with  any  axe,  or 
burned  with  any  fii'e,  or  drowned  with  any  water.'  Au- 
gustine's views  involved  a  fatal  retrogression,  Origen 
and  Athanasius  had  shown  themselves  incomparably  more 
wise.  'Nothing,'  says  Athanasius,  'more  forcibly  marks 
the  weakness  of  a  bad  cause  than  persecution.'  -  The  best 
early  Christian  writers  shuddered  at  those  who  were  'in 
name  priests,  but  in  reality  executioners.'  Tertullian, 
Gregory  of  Nazianzus,  Lactantius,  Martin  of  Tcu^s,  Chry- 
sostom,  Augustine  himself  in  his  earlier  and  better  days, 
had  expressed  the  same  views.^     'Summo  supplicio  et 

1  A  Dominican  wrote  Lob  nnd  Ehrenrede  auf  die  hcilige  Inquisition 
(Wien,  1782),  in  which  he  argues  that  '  fire  is  the  peculiar  delight  of 
God  to  extirpate  heresy,'  and  quotes  Deut.  xiii.  6-10  'as  almost  lite- 
rally the  law  of  the  Holy  Inquisition'  (Lea,  i.  228).  'The  Catholic 
Church,'  says  Cardinal  Vaughan,  'has  never  spared  the  Jcnife,  when 
necessary,  to  cut  off  rebels  against  her  faith  or  authority.' 

2  Hist.  Arian.  iv.  7.  '  The  devil,  when  he  has  no  truth  on  his  side, 
attacks,'  &c.,  id.  iv.  7.  'Force  is  an  evil  thing,'  id.  v.  4.  'It  is  the 
part  of  true  godliness  not  to  compel,  but  to  persuade,'  id.  viii.  4.  Song 
of  Solomon  v.  2.     See  Milman's  Gibbon,  v.  114. 

3  Tert.  ad  Scap.  2 ;  Apol.  24 ;  Lact.  Instt.  v.  9,  20 ;  Epit.  24 ;  Chry- 
sostom,  Orat.  in  Bahyl. :  'Christians  are  not  to  destroy  error  by 
force  and  violence,  but  should  work  the  salvation  of  men  by  per- 
suasion, instruction,  and  love.'  Sulpicius  Severus  (Hist.  Sacra,  ii. 
50)  and  St.  Martin  of  Tours  alike  condemn  the  wretched  sophism 
that  the  Church  does  not  put  to  death,  but  only  hands  over  to  the 
secular  arm,  and  call  it  '  inauditum  nefas,  ut  causam  Ecclesia?  judex 
sieculi  judicaret.' 


198  THE  BIBLE 

inexpiabili  poena  jubemus  affligi '  was  a  law  as  indefensible 
when  Theodosius  aimed  it  at  the  Manichees  as  when  Nero 
and  Diocletian  had  aimed  it  at  the  Christians, 

Yet  when  Alva  was  carrying  out  with  massacre  and 
conflagrations  the  behests  of  popes  and  'most  Cliristian' 
emperors— massacres  in  which  we  are  told  by  Grotius  that 
from  75,000  to  100,000  persons  w^ere  put  to  death  for  their 
religion  in  the  Netherlands  alone— this  ruthless  butcher 
received  from  Pope  Pius  V.  a  jewelled  sword  with  the 
inscription  Accipe  sanctum  gladium  munus  a  Deo! 
But  alas ! 

Crime  was  ne'er  so  black 

As  ghostly  cheer  and  pious  thanks  to  lack. 

Satan  is  modest.     At  Heaven's  door  he  lays 

His  evil  offspring,  and  in  Scripture  phrase 

And  saintly  posture  gives  to  God  the  praise 

And  honour  of  his  monstrous  progeny ! 

Charles  IX.  of  France,  the  author  of  the  Massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew,  is  one  of  the  most  wretched  figui-es  whom 
history  presents  to  our  indignant  pity  and  contempt,  and 
the  only  sign  of  grace  in  him  is  the  agonising  remorse 
which  haunted  the  rest  of  his  miserable  hfe. 

After  a  crime  so  monstrous  as  the  predetermined  and 
treacherous  murder  of  50,000  of  his  subjects,^  we  should 
have  imagined  that  the  voice  of  Christian  execration  would 
have  rung  through  Europe  with  a  horror  which  none  could 
have  mistaken.  If  St.  Ambrose  and  St.  Martin  were 
shocked  by  the  legal  execution,  after  long  trials,  of  five 
hated  and  persecuted  heretics,  what  would  have  been 

1  See  Ranke  on  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  in  Hist.-polit. 
Zeitschrift,  ii.  111.  Sansorio,  Cardinal  of  San  Severino,  in  his  diary, 
speaks  of  'Carlo  IX,  di  gloriosa  memoria,  in  quel  cclchrc  giortio  di  S. 
Bartolommeo,  lietissimo  a'  cattoUci '  (Ranke,  Fojyes,  ii.  235). 


ST.  BARTHOLOMEW'S  EVE  199 

their  sense  of  heartrending  astonishment  to  hear  that  a 
Christian  king  had  ordered  the  midnight  murder  of  thou- 
sands of  his  innocent  and  peaceful  subjects  ?  But  alas ! 
a  fearfid  change  had  come  over  the  spirit  of  Christianity. 
Instead  of  horror  there  was  festivity ;  instead  of  execra- 
tion there  were  p^ans  !  Pope  Gregory  XIII.  struck  a  tri- 
umphant medal  in  honour  of  the  massacre,  ordered  Vasari 
to  paint  a  picture  of  it  for  the  Vatican,  and  went  in  pro- 
cession "with  his  priests  and  bishops  to  sing  an  ecstatic  Te 
Deum  to  express  the  joy  of  the  Papacy  at  so  many  atrocious 
mui'ders !  The  cannon  thundered  from  the  Castle  of  St. 
Angelo,  bonfires  illuminated  the  streets  of  Rome,  and  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine  gave  a  thousand  gold  scudi  as  a 
reward  to  the  courier  who  brought  the  horrid  news. 
Cardinal  Orsino  'sought  out  the  leader  of  the  butchery 
at  Lyons,  and  gave  him  his  blessing  and  his  absolution.'  ^ 
'The  history  of  Europe  for  a  hundred  years  was  the 
history  of  the  efforts  of  the  Church,  with  open  force  or 
secret  conspiracy,  with  all  the  energy,  base  or  noble,  which 
passion  or  passionate  enthusiasm  could  inspire  to  crush  and 
annihilate  its  foes.-  No  means  came  amiss  to  it,  sword  or 
stake,  torture-chamber  or  assassin's  dagger.  The  effects 
of  the  Church's  working  were  seen  in  ruined  nations  and 
smoking  cities,  in  human  beings  tearing  one  another  to 
pieces  like  raging  maniacs,  and  the  honour  of  the  Creator 
of  the  world  befouled  by  the  hideous  crimes  committed  in 
His  Name.     All  this  is  forgotten  now,  forgotten  or  even 

*  Froude,  Council  of  Trent.  On  Louis  XIV.  and  the  horrors  which 
accompanied  his  faithless  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  see 
Michelet. 

2  Lecky,  Rationalism,  ii.  35.  'The  Church  of  Rome  has  shed  more 
innocent  blood  than  any  other  institution  that  has  ever  existed  among 
mankind.  All  this  is  very  horrible,  but  it  is  only  a  small  part  of  the 
misery  which  the  persecuting  spirit  of  Rome  has  produced.' 


200  THE  BIBLE 

audaciously  denied.'  The  popes  should  have  learnt  St.  Je- 
rome's lesson  :  '  Non  ob  Sardorum  mastrucam  tantum  Chris- 
tum mortuum  esse.'  Christ  died  as  little  for  the  Popish 
usurpation  only,  as  for  the  skincloth  of  Sardinian  sectaries.^ 
Nor  must  it  be  supposed  that  the  persecuting  spirit  has 
ceased  to  exist,  or  that  even  in  these  days  intolerance  has 
ceased  to  justify  its  burning  hatred  by  Scripture  quotations. 
It  has  lost  its  power,  not  its  virulence ;  its  effectiveness, 
not  its  fury. 

Fagot  and  stake  were  desperately  sincere ; 
Our  cooler  martyrdoms  are  done  in  type. 

5.  It  is  strange  that  Scripture  should  have  been  exclu- 
sively relied  on  to  defend  two  things  so  opposite  to  each 
other,  yet  alike  so  deadly  to  the  happiness  of  mankind,  as 
(i)  passive  obedience  on  the  one  hand,  and  (ii)  on  the  other 
the  assassination  of  kings.  Yet  such  is  the  case !  The 
majority  of  the  English  clergy  in  the  reigns  of  James  I. 
and  of  Charles  I.  and  after  the  Restoration  of  Charles  II. 
habitually  preached  the  duty  of  passive  obedience,  which 
they  wrongly  deduced  from  Scripture.^  Fortunately  a 
doctrine  resting  on  such  false  inferences  breaks  down  the 
moment  it  is  tested.  The  Stuart  Kings  learnt  by  experi- 
ence that,  however  much  the  clergy  might  maintain  the 
theory,  they  would  resist  and  rebel  against  kings  the 

1  I  have  never  yet  f  oimd  any  Roman  controversialist  who  will  con- 
demn the  'Holy  ( ! )  Office'  of  the  Inquisition  and  its  cruel  horrors. 
So  far  from  it,  in  the  oath  taken  by  Roman  bishops  (Rom.  Pontificale, 
p.  63,  ed.  Rom.  1818)  maybe  seen  the  passage:  'H^reticos  omnes, 
Bchismaticos  et  rebelles  [and  therefore  all  the  Protestants  of  England] 
eidem  Domino  nostro  [the  Pope]  et  ejus  suecessoribus,  pro  posse 
persequar  et  impugnabo.' 

2  Hallam,  Hist  of  Eng.  ii.  459. 


THE   PERSECUTING   SPIRIT  201 

moment  their  own   rights  were  invaded  or  their  own 
interests  touched. 

'  The  Church  of  England/  says  Macaulay, '  continued  to 
be  for  more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  the  servile 
handmaid  of  monarchy,  the  steady  enemy  of  public  liberty. 
The  divine  right  of  kings  and  the  duty  of  passively  obey- 
ing all  their  commands  were  her  favourite  tenets.  She 
held  those  tenets  firmly  through  times  of  oppression,  per- 
secution, and  licentiousness,  while  law  was  trampled  down, 
while  judgment  was  perverted,  while  the  people  were  eaten 
as  though  they  were  bread.' ^  'Anglicanism,'  says  Mr. 
Lecky,  '  was  from  the  beginning  at  once  the  most  servile 
and  the  most  efficient  agent  of  tyranny.'  In  the  reign  of 
Charles  I.  she  showed  deadly  hostility  to  the  champions  of 
liberty.  In  the  vile  reign  of  Charles  II.  she  had  few  or 
no  rebukers  for  the  hideous  corruption  of  the  Court,  but 
was  busy  with  repression  of  dissenters,  and  Test  Acts, 
and  Five  Mile  Acts,  and  was  preaching  assiduously  that 
'Kings  are  above  all,  inferior  to  none,  to  no  man,  to  no 
multitude  of  men,  to  no  angels,  to  no  order  of  angels ;  their 
power  is  not  only  human,  but  superhuman.  It  is  participat- 
ing in  God's  own  omnipotence.'  -  In  the  reign  of  James  II. 
they  were  not  roused  by  the  infamous  atrocities  of  Kirke 
and  Jeffreys  and  Claverhouse,  but  only  began  to  fling  their 
theories  to  the  winds  when  the  feeble  and  cniel  despot 
began  to  tamper  with  ecclesiastical  monopolies.  In  the 
reign  of  George  III.  they  were  'astonishingly  warm'^  in 
favour  of  the  American  War,  and  '  flashed  in  the  faces  of 

1  Essays,  i.  132.  See  Lecky,  BationaUsm,  ii.  178;  Hallam,  Hist,  of 
Eur.  Lit.  ii.  39-46 ;  Oxenham,  Ethical  Studies,  pp.  406,  413.  Mariana 
(De  liege,  1.599),  Keller  (Tyrannicidium),  and  Suarez  justify  regicide. 

2  Dr.  Mainwaring  (see  Perry,  Hist,  of  the  Church,  pp.  358-366). 
'  Burke. 


202  THE  BIBLE 

the  Americans  the  old  rusty  but  refurbished  weapons  of 
passive  obedience  and  non-resistance.' 

6.  And  if  Protestant  clergymen  have  preached  passive 
obedience,  Romish  emissaries  have  misused  Scripture  to 
justify  the  assassination  of  kings.  The  murder  of  Henry 
III.  by  the  monk  Jacques  Clement  was  publicly  applauded 
by  Pope  Sixtus  V.^  The  murder  of  Henry  IV.  by  Ravaillac, 
the  murder  of  WiQiam  of  Orange  by  Balthasar  Gerard,-  the 
nefarious  Gunpowder  Plot,received  the  sanction  of  Roman- 
ist divines.  '  Mariana  pronounced  a  eulogy  full  of  pathetic 
declamation  on  Jacques  Clement,  who  first  tooJc  counsel  of 
divines,  assassinated  his  king,  and  made  himself  a  great 
name.'  '  It  is  only  to  the  hand  of  the  Almighty  Himself,' 
wrote  Mendoza  to  Philip,  '  that  this  fortunate  event  is  to 
be  assigned.'  ^ 

'  It  was  impossible  to  deny,'  says  Macaulay, '  that  Roman 
Catholic  casuists  of  eminence  had  wi-itten  in  defence  of 
equivocation,  of  mental  reservation,  of  perjury,  and  even 
of  assassination.  It  was  alleged  that  every  one  of  these 
crimes  had  been  prompted  or  applauded  by  Roman  Catho- 
lic divines.  The  letters  which  Everard  Digby  wi'ote  in 
lemon  juice  from  the  Tower  to  his  wife  had  recently  been 
published,  and  were  often  quoted.  He  was  a  scholar  and 
a  gentleman,  upright  in  all  ordinary  dealings,  and  strongly 
impressed  with  a  sense  of  duty  to  God.  Yet  he  had  been 
deeply  concerned  in  the  plot  for  blowing  up  King,  Lords, 
and  Commons,  and  has,  on  the  brink  of  eternity,  declared 
that  it  was  incomprehensible  to  him  how  any  Roman  Catholic 
should  thitiJc  such  a  design  sinfuV !  Even  the  attempt  to 
murder  the  Emperor  of  Germany  in  1884  was  defended 

1  De  Thou,  liv.,  xcvi.  'In  many  churches  the  image  of  the  mur- 
derer was  placed  for  reverence  upon  the  altar  of  God'  (Lecky,  Ea- 
tionalism,  ii.  177).     Rauke,  Bk.  v.  $  13. 

a  Kanke,  u.  111.  3  Qqq  Ranke,  ii.  177,  199. 


CRUDE  MORALITY  203 

by  the  murderers  and  those  who  abetted  them,  by  the  ex- 
amples of  Ehud  and  Jael ! 

7.  The  spii-it  which  was  guilty  of  these  opposite  and 
equally  shameful  misappHcations  of  the  Bible  is  not  dead. 
To  this  day  the  Mormons  defend  polygamy  out  of  the  Old 
Testament.  In  the  Civil  War  of  America  the  pulpits  of 
the  South  rang  with  incessant  Scriptural  defences  of 
slavery.  *  From  its  inherent  nature/  said  a  South  Ameri- 
can Bishop, '  slavery  has  been  a  curse  and  a  blight  wherever 
it  exists ;  yet  it  is  warranted  by  the  Bible.  Therefore,  as 
slavery  is  recognised  by  the  Bible,  every  man  has  a  right 
to  own  slaves,  provided  they  are  not  treated  with  unneces- 
sary cruelty ' !  Was  there  ever  a  stranger  utterance  on  the 
lips  of  a  Christian  bishop  ?  Could  there  be  a  more  certain 
way  of  distorting  the  Bible  into  purposes  the  ver}'  opposite 
from  those  for  which  it  was  intended,  than  to  make  it  the 
sole  authority  for  maintaining  an  institution  which  was  con- 
fessed to  be, '  by  its  inherent  nature,  a  curse  and  a  blight '  ?  ^ 

'  Of  crude  morality,'  says  the  Rev.  Professor  A.  B.  Bruce, 
'  there  are  numerous  instances  in  the  Old  Testament,  and 
no  one  can  use  it  as  a  perfect  guide  who  does  not  under- 
stand this.' 

'If  we  find  even  in  the  Bible,'  says  a  Scotch  di\dne, 
'  an3i;hing  which  confuses  our  senses  of  right  and  wi'ong, 
which  seems  to  us  less  exalted  and  pure  than  the  character 
of  God  would  be ;  if  after  the  most  patient  thought  and 
prayerful  pondering  it  still  retains  this  aspect,  then  we  are 
not  to  bow  down  to  it  as  God's  revelation  to  us,  since  it 
does  not  meet  the  need  of  the  earlier  and  more  sacred 
revelation  He  has  given  us  in  our  own  spirit  and  con- 
science which  testify  of  Him.' 

^  'The  craft  of  the  devil  is  so  great  that  he  introduces  his  deadly 
doctrines  by  adding  to  or  taking  from,  by  distorting  or  changing,  the 
written  words.'— St.  Chrys.  0pp.  vi.  162. 


CHAPTER  XV 

FURTHER  MISINTERPRETATION   OF  THE  BIBLE. 

Tovg  kvTvyxovovrac  ro'cg  iepolq  ypdfi/j.aoiv  oi)  del  avXXaPo/iaxelv,  aXXa  irpb 
Tuv  bvofidruv  Kot  l)Ti/j.dTuv  t^v  dcavocav  ckotteIv. — Philo,  Fragm,  (ed.  Man- 
gey,  ii.  p.  656). 

'  The  aim  of  all  Scripture  is  the  reformation  of  mankind.* 

St.  Chrys.  Ojjp.  vi.  314. 
'Alia  quae  absque  auetoritate  et  testimoniis  Scripturarum  quasi 
traditione  Apostoliea   sponte  referunt  atque   conjfingunt,  percutit 
gladius  Dei.' — Jer.  in  Hagg.  i.  11. 

'  Nostra  damns,  cum  falsa  damns,  nam  f allere  nostrum  est ; 
Et  cum  falsa  damns,  nil  nisi  nostra  damus.' 

The  facts  at  which  we  have  glanced  are  surely  full  of 
warning!  By  the  superstitious  misapplication  of  the 
mere  phrases  of  Scripture,  the  Bible  has  been  quoted 
against  Copernicus,  and  Kepler,  and  Galileo,  and  Colum- 
bus; on  the  perversion  of  'Honom*  the  King'  was  built 
the  ruinous  opposition  to  national  freedom  and  the  slavish 
theory  of  'passive  obedience;'  on  the  su2)€r  Jicuic  petram 
the  colossal  usurpations  of  Papal  tyranny ;  on  '  Cursed  be 
Canaan'  the  shameful  infamies  of  the  slave  trade;  on 
'Constrain  them  to  come  in'  the  hideous  crimes  of  the 
Inquisition ;  on  '  Thou  shalt  not  suffer  a  witch  to  live '  the 
deplorable  butcheries  of  Sprenger;  on  'Being  crafty  I 
caught  them  with  guile '  (St.  Paul's  ironic  reference  to  a 

204 


MISUSE  OF  SCRIPTURE  205 

gross  calumny)  the  disgraceful  advice  to  entrap  and  ruin 
heretics  by  ecclesiastical  treacher}'.  Even  Philo,  profound 
as  was  his  reverence  for  Scripture,  corrected  such  servile 
tendencies  nearly  two  miUennimiis  ag'o.  He  bade  us  not 
to  fight  about  words  and  syllables,  but  to  discover  the  es- 
sential meaning. 

That  the  evils  on  which  I  have  dwelt  have  sprung  chiefly 
from  misuse  of  the  Bible  cannot  be  denied;  but  it  is 
absurd  to  charge  them  upon  the  Bible  itself,  because  the 
Bible,  taken  as  a  whole,  and  in  its  full  and  final  teach- 
ing, constitutes  their  most  emphatic  condemnation.  The 
blame  of  them  belongs  not  to  the  Book,  but  to  those  who 
abase  it  to  the  lowest  depths  under  pretence  of  exalting 
it ;  and  to  those  who  nullify  its  essential  purpose  by  pro- 
fessing to  adore  its  separate  words  and  letters.  Through 
the  narrow  chink  of  perhaps  some  single  text— and  that 
usually  misinterpreted  and  torn  from  its  context— they  let 
in  the  flood-tide  of  eiTors  which  every  genuine  wall,  bastion, 
and  foundation  of  the  Book  was  intended  to  keep  out  for 
ever. 

It  is  no  more  an  argument  against  the  Bible  that  it  is 
misused  than  it  is  against  the  vine  that  so  much  of  its 
clustered  fruit  is  made  the  instrument  of  drunkenness. 
If  it  be  true,  as  an  American  writer  says,  that  'we  have 
drawn  from  it  the  power  to  save  men  and  to  slay  them ; 
to  establish  peace  and  to  mass  artillery ;  to  be  Christians 
of  the  noblest  type  and  bigots  of  the  direst'— that  is  be- 
cause we  wholly  misunderstand  its  nature.  If  we  choose 
to  wrest  or  '  torture '  Scripture,  as  St.  Peter  expresses  it, 
we  may  always  find  in  it  this  power  for  evil  as  well  as  for 
good,  *  the  inspiration  of  life  unto  life  or  of  death  unto 
death,  the  light  of  heaven  or  the  smoke  of  heU.  It  is  as 
wings  to  the  spirit  of  one  man  and  as  lead  to  another ;  it 


206  THE   BIBLE 

brings  sight  or  begets  blindness,  makes  melody  or  creates 
discord.'  But  why  is  this  ?  It  is  because  men  go  to  it  as 
though  it  were  one,  and  homogeneous.  It  is  because  men 
go  to  it  not  for  what  they  find  in  it  as  a  whole,  but  for 
what  they  can  wrench  out  of  its  isolated  utterances  j  and, 
worse  than  this,  because  they  go  to  it  not  for  what  they 
really  find  there  as  its  final  teaching,  but  for  what  they 
want  to  find  there  in  support  of  their  own  interests  and 
opinions.  They  illustrate  the  sarcasm  of  Kant:  'Go  to 
the  Bible,  but  mind,  you  must  not  find  there  anything  ive 
do  not  find  there ;  anything  except  what  I  find ;  because 
if  you  do  you  are  wrong.' 

Those  who  would  make  the  Bible  itseK  responsible  for 
this  abuse  of  its  isolated,  imperfect,  or  misused  passages, 
should  further  remember  two  facts : 

1.  First,  they  are  using  it  in  a  manner  to  which  it  lends 
no  sanction,  but  to  which  it  has  been  perverted  by  theories 
of  human  invention ;  secondly,  the  crimes  and  errors  which 
were  sometimes  defended  on  its  supposed  authority  were 
mainly  confined  to  ages  in  which  it  was  least  known,  or 
which  inherited  the  errors  which  had  become  the  stereo- 
typed result  of  that  previous  ignorance. 

If  the  defence  of  polygamy,  of  slavery,  of  witch-burning, 
of  religious  persecution,  of  exterminating  wars  really  re- 
sulted from  any  right  use  of  the  Sacred  Book,  how  came 
it  that  these  wrongs,  each  and  all,  were  distinctly  repudi- 
ated by  the  earlier  generations  of  Christians,  who  as  yet 
possessed  no  New  Testament  whereby  to  correct  any  errors 
which  might  have  sprung  from  a  mistaken  application  of 
the  Old? 

From  the  first,  among  the  early  Christians— poor  and 
ignorant  as  most  of  them  were— polygamy  was  unknown ; 
slavery  was  partly  ameliorated  mto  brotherhood,  and  partly 


MISUSE   OF  SCRIPTURE  207 

discouraged  or  suppressed ;  religious  persecution  was  re- 
garded with  horror ;  witches  were  practically  unheard  of. 
So  far  from  approving  of  exterminating  warfare,  ULfilas, 
the  great  apostle  of  the  Goths  in  the  fourth  century,  would 
not  even  translate  into  Gothic  the  more  warlike  books  of 
the  Old  Testament,  lest  they  should  furnish  any  incentive 
or  excuse  to  the  wild  passions  of  his  converts.  The  Chris- 
tians of  those  days  understood  at  least  thus  much— that 
to  support  on  Biblical  authority  anything  which  was  alien 
from  the  Spirit  of  Christ  was  not  to  use  but  to  misuse  the 
Bible.  If  it  involved  no  misinterpretation  of  the  particular 
passages  referred  to,  it  involved  a  fundamental  misinter- 
pretation of  everything  which  the  Bible  was  meant  to  be. 
Whether  practices  or  institutions  which  we  now  regard 
as  execrable  were  once  relatively  excusable  is  at  the  best 
a  speculative  question.  Whatever  may  be  said  about 
them  in  the  earlier  books  of  the  Bible,  they  are  now,  at 
any  rate,  absolutely  and  for  ever  wrong. 

2.  And  it  is  the  Bible  itself  which  has  at  length  delivered 
mankind  from  the  curses  which  arose  from  its  abuse. 

The  horrors  on  which  I  have  touched  belong  mainly  to 
the  dark  ages,  or  were  part  of  the  worst  legacy  which  they 
bequeathed.  But  in  the  dark  ages  less  was  known  of  the 
real  meaning  of  the  Bible  than  at  any  other  period.  To 
the  mass  of  Christians  under  the  Papal  tjTanny  it  was  a 
sealed  book.  They  could  form  no  sort  of  judgment  re- 
specting it,  except  such  as  they  derived  from  men  whose 
policy  it  has  always  been  to  keep  it  out  of  their  hands, 
who  ruled  over  their  consciences  with  a  rod  of  iron,  and 
who  abused  its  perverted  texts  to  establish  their  own 
tyranny. 

Take  for  instance  the  entire  system  of  priestly  penances. 
How  could  Christians  know  that  it  was  wholly  without 


208  THE   BIBLE 

Scriptural  authority  when,  ignorant  of  the  original  Greek, 
and  dependent  on  the  faulty  Vulgate,  they  read  in  Acts  ii. 
38  'poenitentiam  agite,'  which  was  explained  to  mean  *  do 
penance '  ?  ^  Can  we  wonder  at  the  intense  flash  of  illumi- 
nation which  thrilled  through  Luther's  soul,  when,  having 
held  this  view  for  many  years  of  his  life,  he  suddenly 
discovered  that  neravoriaaTe  ('repent  ye')  had  no  shadow 
of  such  a  meaning,  and  had  no  connection  whatever  with 
the  system  which  the  Church  of  Rome  had  elevated  into 
a  spurious  sacrament  ? 

'  Wliat  meanings  the  monks  had  got  out  of  the  Vulgate, 
Erasmus  illustrates  by  a  hundred  instances.  He  was 
present  once  when  some  of  them  were  arguing  whether  it 
was  right  to  put  heretics  to  death.  A  learned  friar  quoted 
from  St.  Paul,  "  Heereticum  devita !  "  He  had  conceived 
that  by  "devita "St.  Paul  had  meant  an  order  de  vita 
tollereJ  ^ 

It  may  be  proved  with  certainty  that  the  ignorance  of 
the  Bible  was  absolute,  as  it  still  is  in  South  America  and 
most  Romish  countries.  There  was  extreme  hostility 
against  every  attempt  to  make  it  better  known,  and  this 
hostility  was  due  in  great  measure  to  the  fear  lest  a  better 
knowledge  of  it  should  entu*ely  overthrow  the  sacerdotal 

^  Pope  Gregory  I.  said  rightly  '  Poenitentiam  agere  est  et  perpe- 
trata  mala  plangere  ei  plangeiuJa  non  perpetrare.' 

2  Fronde,  Lectures  on  the  Council  of  Trent,  p.  59.  The  ignorant 
error  is  by  no  means  isolated.  We  are  told  of  many  Catholics  who 
understood  Ps.  xxxiv.  to  mean,  not  'thou  hast  founded  it  upon  the 
floods '  {super  maria),  but '  upon  Mary '  {super  Marid) ;  and  of  Cahin- 
ists  who  denied  the  necessity  of  repentance  to  the  elect,  because  the 
calling  of  God  is  '  without  repentance  ; '  and  of  an  English  archbishop 
before  the  Reformation,  who  argued  the  supremacy  of  the  Roman 
Church,  because,  he  said,  every  one  knows  that  '  kephas '  means  '  a 
head.' 


IGNORANCE   OF   SCRIPTURE  209 

despotism  which  professed  to  be  based  upon  its  inspired 
authority.  'The  encroachments  of  the  Papacy  had  ab- 
sorbed all  subordinate  authority,  and  from  the  Papacy  the 
poison  of  simony  and  profligacy  had  gone  through  every 
vein  and  artery  of  the  Catholic  Communion.'  If  those  are 
the  words  of  a  Protestant  writer,  they  are  no  whit  more 
strong  than  passages  which  might  be  cited  from  popes  and 
saints  as  to  what  kind  of  men  were  many  of  the  priests 
who  lorded  it  with  awful  spiritual  autocracy  over  the  free 
consciences  of  men.  '  The  corruption  of  the  people/  said 
Pope  Innocent  III.  in  his  opening  address  to  the  great 
Lateran  Council, '  has  its  chief  source  in  the  clergy.  From 
this  arise  the  evils  of  Christendom ;  faith  perishes ;  religion 
is  defaced ;  liberty  is  restricted ;  justice  is  trodden  under 
foot.'  Pope  Adrian  VI.  spoke  quite  as  strongly,  and 
pointed  to  the  Roman  curia  as  the  very  source  and  fount 
of  the  universal  depravity. 

As  to  the  general  ignorance,  the  *  Epistolae  Obscurorum 
Virorum '  illustrates  the  conviction  among  free  and  think- 
ing men  that  the  struggle  between  the  Reformers  and 
the  Papacy  was  the  struggle  of  knowledge  against  obscu- 
rantism, of  light  against  darkness,  of  morality  against 
corruption,  of  freedom  against  a  servility  which  was  in- 
tolerable and  degrading  to  the  awakening  conscience  of 
mankind.  There  was  a  story  current,  far  from  impossible, 
of  a  priest  who  thought  that  Greek  and  the  New  Testa- 
ment were  two  recent  heresies !  Luther  tells  us  that  he 
had  attained  the  age  of  twenty-six  before  he  had  read 
a  complete  Bible.  Hebrew  was  stupidly  denounced  by 
Dominicans  and  inquisitors  as  'an  accursed  tongue.' 
When  Reuchlin  lectured  on  Hebrew  at  Heidelberg  he  had 
to  do  so  secretly,  and  he  was  perpetually  worried  by  sus- 
picious ignorance. 
14 


210  THE   BIBLE 

At  last  Erasmus,  that  great  injured  name, 
The  glory  of  the  priesthood  and  the  shame, 
Stemmed  the  wild  torrent  of  a  barbarous  age 
And  drove  the  holy  Vandals  off  the  stage. 

He  complained  that  '  men  and  women  chattered  like  par- 
rots the  Psalms  and  prayers  which  they  did  not  under- 
stand.' '  The  Italians  say/  complains  Melanchthon, '  he  is 
a  good  grammarian;  therefore  he  is  a  heretic'  There 
were  thousands  even  of  theologians  who  did  not  know 
whether  the  Apostles  wrote  in  Greek,  in  Hebrew,  or  in 
Latin.  A  professor  of  the  Sorbonne,  in  a  public  lecture 
aimed  against  the  new  Scriptural  studies,  exclaimed :  '  By 
heavens !  I  was  more  than  fifty  years  old  before  I  knew 
what  the  New  Testament  was.'  The  learned  and  able 
Carlstadt  says  that  he  had  been  a  Doctor  of  Divinity  for 
eight  years  before  he  had  read  the  whole  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament. The  current  systems  of  belief  in  many  points 
were  drawn,  says  Robert  Stephens,  '  not  from  the  oracles 
of  God,  but  from  Peter  Lombard,  the  Sophist  Aristotle, 
and  the  Mahometan  Averroes.'^  They  were,  in  fact,  de- 
pendent for  most  Christians  upon  the  bald  dicta  of  priests, 
and  were  to  a  great  extent  false.  Even  had  they  been 
true,  yet,  as  Milton  says,  'if  a  man  believes  things  only 
because  his  pastor  says  so,  or  the  assembly  so  determines, 
without  knowing  other  reason,  though  his  belief  be  true, 
yet  the  very  truth  he  holds  becomes  his  heresy.' 

I  have  already  quoted  some  of  the  passages  of  Holy 

1  See  the  authorities  referred  to  in  History  of  Interpretation,  pp. 
316-323.  In  1199  Innocent  III.  ordered  Arnold  of  Citeaux  to  suppress 
Bible-reading  at  Metz,  on  the  plea  that  the  Bible  was  '  far  beyond  the 
grasp  of  the  simple  and  illiterate.'  The  present  Pope  says  in  his 
Encyclical  on  the  Bible,  '  Incorruptum  Sacr.  Litterarum  sensum  extra 
Ecclesiam  neutiquam  reperiri.' 


THE   BIBLE   PROHIBITED  211 

Writ  which  require  us  to  exercise  the  right  of  private 
judgment,  the  light  of  reason  and  conscience  in  judging 
of  every  truth  which  is  presented  to  us  (Prov.  xx.  27, 
1  John  iv.  1,  1  Thess.  v.  21,  1  Cor.  ii.  11,  15,  Luke  xii.  57, 
&c.) ;  and  our  greatest  divines  and  thinkers  have  not  failed 
to  learn  the  lesson.  *  For  men  to  be  tied  and  led  by  author- 
ity,' says  Hooker,  '  as  it  were  by  a  kind  of  captivity  of 
judgment,  and  though  there  be  reason  to  the  contrary  not 
to  listen  to  it,  but  to  follow  like  beasts  the  first  in  the  herd, 
this  were  brutish.'  ^ 

'  Reason,'  says  CulverweU,  '  is  the  daughter  of  Eternity, 
and  before  Antiquity,  which  is  the  daughter  of  Time.'- 
'Reason,'  says  Bishop  Butler,  'can  and  ought  to  judge 
not  only  of  the  meaning,  hut  also  of  the  morality  and  evidence 
of  revelation.''  ^  '  No  apology  can  be  required,'  says  Bishop 
Herbert  Marsh,  'for  applying  to  the  Bible  the  principles 
of  reason  and  learning ;  for  if  the  Bible  could  not  stand 
these  tests  it  could  not  be  what  it  is— a  work  of  Divine 
wisdom.  The  Bible  therefore  must  be  examined  by  the 
same  laws  of  criticism  which  are  applied  to  other  writings 
of  antiquity.' 

The  determination  -wdth  which  the  priests  and  monks  of 
those  days  endeavoured  to  keep  the  Bible  from  the  hands 
of  the  people  is  equally  clear.^  When  Wycliffe  gave  the 
Enghsh  a  Bible  from  which  they  could  for  the  first  time 
judge  for  themselves.  Archbishop  Arundel,  writing  to  the 
Pope,  described  him  as  '  that  pestilent  wretch,  John  Wy- 

1  Ecd.  Pol.  ii.  7,  $  6.  2  Dxict.  Duhit.  I.  ii.  $  64. 

3  Anahujij,  II.  iii.  26. 

*  On  the  first  Index  Expurgatorius,  published  by  Pope  Paul  FV.  in 
1559,  he  placed  all  Bibles  in  modern  languages,  enumerating  forty- 
eight  editions,  chiefly  printed  in  Roman  Catholic  countries  (Hallam, 
Lit.  of  Europe,  ii.  265,  and  authorities  there  quoted). 


212  THE  BIBLE 

cliffe,  the  son  of  the  old  Serpent,  the  forerunner  of  Anti- 
christ, who  has  completed  his  iniquity  by  inventing  a  new 
translation  of  the  Scriptures.'  When  Tyndale  completed 
his  inestimable  version,  the  priests  and  bishops  burnt  it 
by  thousands  at  the  old  cross  of  St.  Paul's,  as  '«  burnt 
offering  most  pleasing  to  Almighty  God; '  and  to  crown  his 
glorious  labours  he  was  finally  strangled  and  burnt.  For 
many  centuries  in  many  countries  it  was  death  to  possess 
and  excommunication  to  read  a  translation  of  the  Bible. 
Charles  V.  and  Philip  II.  passed  a  decree  which  inflicted 
the  punishment  of  death  by  burning  on  any  in  the  Nether- 
lands who  presumed  to  read  the  Bible  in  any  language 
which  they  could  understand.^ 

In  proportion  as  the  Bible  has  become  known,  in  that 
proportion  has  it  dispelled  the  atrocities  and  tjTannies 
which  were  based  upon  its  misuse. 

'Truth,'  says  Milton,  'is  compared  in  Scripture  to  a 
streaming  fountain ;  if  her  waters  flow  not  in  a  perpetual 
progression,  they  sicken  into  a  muddy  pool  of  conformity 
and  tradition.' 

As  late  as  1816  Pope  Pius  VII.  declared  in  a  bull  that 
'  it  is  evident  by  experience  that  when  the  Holy  Scriptures 
are  circulated  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  through  the  temerity 
of  men  more  harm  than  benefit  results.'  ^ 

"We  are  not  therefore  surprised  to  know  that  Pius  IX. 
spoke  of  Bible  Societies  as  '  pests '  on  the  same  level  with 

1  Motley's  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic,  i.  73,  228. 

2  '  Plus  inde  detrimenti  quam  utilitatis  oriri.'  It  is  not  thought 
good  to  let  every  curious  busijiody  of  the  baser  sort  read  and  examine 
the  Bible  in  their  common  language.' — Harding.  The  Bull  Unigenitus 
of  Clement  XI.  in  1703  condemned  Quesnel's  propositions,  one  of 
which  was  that  '  to  prohibit  the  reading  of  the  Scripture  ...  is  to 
deny  the  use  of  light  to  the  children  of  light '  (Sixtus  of  Amana,  Anti- 
barb.  Bibl.  ii.  7).     See  the  remarkable  preface  to  the  Bible  of  the 


THE   BIBLE   PROHIBITED  213 

Communistic  Societies ;  or  that  Leo  XIII.  spoke  of  verna- 
cular Bibles  as  '  poisonous  pastures.' 

The  Council  of  Trent  decreed  that '  he  who  shall  presume 
to  read,  or  to  have  a  Bible  without  a  license,  may  not 
receive  absolution  until  he  has  surrendered  the  Bible,' 
The  Romish  theologians  professed  to  base  their  system 
upon  the  traditions  of  men,  and  they  knew  that  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  Bible  by  the  multitude  would  emancipate 
them  from  the  yoke  of  those  hard  doctrines.  *  The  Bible 
is  in  its  essence  the  most  essential  book  of  freedom  and 
equal  brotherhood  before  God.  The  complaints  against 
its  dissemination  came  from  those  who  would  fain  have 
kept  men's  souls  in  docility  to  their  own  bondage.'  Eras- 
mus said  that  he  should  prefer  to  hear  young  maidens 
talking  about  Chi'ist,  than  some  who  in  the  opinion  of  the 
vulgar  are  consummate  Rabbis ;  but  Cochleeus  made  it  a 
ground  for  complaint,  as  Theodoret  had  done  of  exulta- 
tion,^ that  now  even  cobblers  and  women  knew  the  New 

Translators  of  1611,  where  they  call  the  supposed  free  permission  of 
Rome  to  let  the  Bible  be  used  as  a  iopov  aSupov,  because  Romanists 
'must  first  get  a  license  in  writing  before  they  may  use  them,  and  to 
get  that  they  must  approve  themselves  to  their  confessor— that  is,  to 
be  such  as  are,  if  not  frozen  in  the  dregs,  yet  soured  in  the  leaven  of 
their  superstition.'  They  go  on  to  mention  that  Clement  VTII.  with- 
drew the  license  to  read  the  Bible  in  the  ^Tilgar  tongue  granted  by 
Pius  rV.  {Index  Prohib.  libr.  p.  15,  vs.  5).  'So  much  are  they  afraid 
of  the  light  of  the  Scriptures  {Lucifugre  Scripturanim,  as  Tertullian 
speaketh)  that  they  will  not  trust  the  people  with  it— no,  not  as  it  is 
set  forth  by  their  own  sworn  men  ;  no,  not  with  the  license  of  their 
own  bishops  and  inquisitors.  Yea,  so  unworthy.are  they  to  com- 
municate the  Scriptures  to  the  people's  understanding  in  any  sort, 
that  they  are  not  ashamed  to  confess  that  we  forced  them  to  translate 
it  into  English  against  their  wills.  This  seemeth  to  argue  a  bad  cause, 
or  a  bad  conscience,  or  both.' 
1  Xlept  (pixjeui  avdpiinov. 


214  THE   BIBLE 

Testament  by  heart.  Wycliff e  made  it  the  effort  of  his  life 
to  place  the  Bible  in  the  hands  of  the  multitude,  but  the 
chronicler  Knighton  angrily  curses  him  for  having  made 
it  '  common  and  more  open  to  laymen  and  to  women  than 
it  was  wont  to  be  to  clerks  well  learned  and  of  good  under- 
standing, so  that  the  pearl  of  the  Oospel  is  trodden  underfoot 
of  sivine.^ 

We  see,  then,  that  in  the  Romish  Church  there  has  been 
an  extreme  reluctance  to  allow  to  the  people  the  free  use 
of  the  Bible  in  tongues  which  they  understand.  Pius  IV. 
granted  such  a  Ucense,  but  Clement  VIII.  withdrew  it. 

Unstudied,  unthought  of,  except  by  a  few,  lay  the  sacred 
wi'itings  where  alone  the  truth  was  to  be  found  which 
men  were  now  demanding.  It  was  the  free  and  open  Bible 
which  secured  to  us  the  blessings  of  '  the  bright  and  bliss- 
ful Reformation.'  '  The  translated  Bible,'  Cardinal  Newman 
says  with  reluctant  admiration, '  is  the  stronghold  of  heresy.^  ^ 
'  Lately,'  says  a  Roman  Catholic  writer  in  the  '  Contempo- 
rary Review,'  '  I  asked  of  a  parish  priest,  "  Do  you  allow 
youi'  flock  to  read  the  Bible  at  aU?"  ''No,  sir,  I  do  not," 
he  replied.  "  You  forget  that  I  am  a  spiritual  physician, 
not  a  "poisoner  of  souls." '  - 

Tyndale,  in  answer  to  the  profane  remark,  that '  we  had 
better  be  without  God's  laws  than  the  Pope's,'  uttered  the 
noble  boast,  'If  God  spare  my  life,  ere  many  years  I  wiU 
cause  the  boy  that  driveth  the  plough  to  know  more  of 
Scripture  than  thou  dost ; '  but  as  a  consequence  of  his 
labours,  Bishop  Nikke  complained  to  the  Archbishop,  '  It 
passeth  my  power,  or  that  of  any  spiritual  man,  to  hinder 
it  now,  and  if  this  continue  much  longer  it  ivill  undo  us  all.' 

The  perversions  of  Scripture  by  ignorance,  pride,  and 

1  Froude,  Lectures  on  the  Council  of  Trent,  p.  59. 

2  See  too  Lasserre,  Pref.  ii. 


USE  AND   MISUSE  215 

self-interest  become  a  thousandfold  more  perilous  "when  it 
is  kept  as  a  whole  from  the  hands  of  Christians  and  its 
fragments  are  only  manipulated  by  those  who  would  fain 
lock  the  doors  of  knowledge. 

It  has  been  said  that  'there  is  no  foUy,  no  God-dis- 
honouring theology,  no  iniquity,  no  sacerdotal  puerility, 
for  which  chapter  and  verse  may  not  be  cited  hij  an  enslaved 
intelligence.  And  under  these  circumstances  it  is  impossiUe 
to  express  in  adequate  terms  the  importance  of  a  correct  esti- 
mate and  exposition  of  the  Bible?  ^ 

That  correct  estimate  depends  most  of  all  on  our  reject- 
ing every  false  theory  respecting  it;  and  in  judging 
each  book  and  part  of  it  in  accordance  with  the  purest 
light  of  the  reason  and  the  conscience  enlightened  by  the 
teaching  of  Christ. 

When  we  do  this,  we  shall  see  that  as  a  whole  it  uplifts 
to  the  nations  a  loftier  standard  of  righteousness  and 
freedom,  a  purer  ideal  of  Eternal  Life,  than  aU  the  other 
literatui'e  of  all  the  world,  including  all  the  most  sacred 
books  of  the  nations.  For  when  we  do  this  we  shall  see 
that  in  it  we  may  find  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation 
through  Jesus  Christ.  Theories  of  plenary  inspiration  and 
supernatural  infallibility  in  every  part ;  theories  that  the 
sacred  writers  were  all  and  always  not  only  the  penmen 
but  the  inanimate  pens  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  theories  that 
the  Bible  in  every  verse  not  merely  contains  but  is  the 
word  of  God— these  and  similar  theories  snatched  up  in 
defiance  of  all  the  phenomena,  and  supported  by  a  casuistr}'' 
which  revolts  the  healthy  conscience  and  common  sense  of 
mankind — have  been,  in  age  after  age,  prolific  of  terrible 
di.-^asters.  Yet  even  in  despite  of  such  errors  the  essential 
teaching  of  Scripture  has  been  an  inestimable  blessing  to 
1  The  Rev.  E.  White. 


216  THE   BIBLE 

generation  after  generation ;  and  when  once  it  has  been 
disencumbered  of  pernicious  falsities,  and  judged  for  what 
it  is— the  fragmentary  yet  sufficient  record  of  a  progi'essive 
revelation ;  the  most  precious  outward  contribution  to  the 
slow,  manifold,  partial,  and  gradual  education  of  the  hu- 
man race  in  the  will  of  God— then  the  Bible  has  been  and 
will  for  ever  be  the  soui'ce  of  blessings  which  no  arithmetic 
can  number  and  no  eloquence  express.  One  who  was  at 
least  a  most  keen  and  able  critic  saj'^s  with  truth,  '  Taking 
the  Old  Testament  as  Israel's  sublime  establishment  of  the 
theme  "  EighteoKsness  is  salvation;  "  taking  the  New  as  an 
incomparable  elucidation  by  Jesus  of  what  righteousness 
is  and  how  salvation  is  won,  I  do  not  fear  comparing  the 
power,  over  the  soul  and  imagination,  of  the  Bible,  taken 
in  this  sense— a  sense  which  is  at  the  same  time  solid— 
with  the  like  power  in  the  old  materialistic  and  miraculous 
sense  for  the  Bible,  which  is  not.'  ^ 

It  is  an  entire  mistake  to  imagine  that  the  cause  of  God 
and  of  religion  has  gained  in  any  way  from  that  mechani- 
cal theory  of  inspiration  which  has  been  the  taproot  of  so 
many  crimes  against  humanity.  On  the  contrary,  it  has 
lost  unspeakably.  '  The  natural  result  of  a  man  like  Calov 
was  a  man  like  Voltaire.'  Of  Voltaire  it  has  been  said 
that  'He  saw  only  a  besotted  people  led  in  chains  by  a 
crafty  priesthood.  Men  spoke  to  him  of  the  mild  beams 
of  Christian  charity,  and  where  they  pointed  he  saw  only 
the  yellow  glare  of  the  stake;  they  talked  of  the  gentle 
solace  of  Christian  faith,  and  he  heard  only  the  shrieks  of 
the  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  whom  Christian  per- 
secutors had  racked,  strangled,  gibbeted,  burnt,  broken  on 
the  wheel.  Through  the  steam  of  innocent  blood  which 
Christians  for  the  honour  of  their  belief  had  spilt  in  every 
1  Matthew  Arnold,  God  and  the  Bible,  Pref.  p.  xxv. 


USE   AND   MISUSE  217 

quarter  of  the  known  world— the  blood  of  Jews,  Moors, 
Indians,  and  all  the  vast  holocausts  of  heretical  sects  and 
people  in  eastern  and  western  Europe— he  saw  only  dismal 
tracts  of  intellectual  darkness,  and  heard  only  the  hum- 
ming of  the  doctors  as  they  served  forth  to  congregations 
of  poor  men  hungering  for  spiritual  sustenance  the  draff 
of  theological  superstition.'  ^  When  we  are  shocked  at  the 
ribaldries  and  blasphemies  of  Voltaire,  let  us  not  forget 
that  he  identified  the  spii'it  of  Christianity  with  deeds  so 
hon'id  as  the  execrable  cruelty  inflicted  by  an  unworthy 
Church  on  Jean  Calas,  the  Servins,  and  the  young  De  la 
Barre ;  and  that  these  deeds  were  sanctioned  and  defended 
by  shreds  and  scraps  of  Scripture  texts. 

The  confession  of  Richard  III.  might  have  been  made 
by  many : 

'  And  thus  I  clothe  my  naked  villany 
With  odd  old  ends  stolen  forth  of  Holy  Writ, 
And  seem  a  saint  when  most  I  play  the  devil.' 2 

And  when  we  meditate  on  all  the  unmingled  blessings 
which  the  Bible,  rightly  used  and  understood,  would  have 
brought  to  mankind,  and  on  the  many  curses  for  which 
its  misuse  has  been  made  responsible,  we  can  find  no  words 
more  suitable  than  those  of  the  fervid  Quaker  poet : 

Foul  scorn  and  shame  be  on  ye  all, 

Who  turn  the  good  to  evil ; 
Who  steal  the  Bible  from  the  Lord 

And  give  it  to  the  devil. 

Than  garbled  text  and  parchment  law 

I  own  a  statute  higher ; 
And  God  is  true — were  every  book 

And  every  man  a  liar. 

1  J.  Morley,  Voltaire,  p.  236.  2  mch.  zil.  Act  i.  Sc.  3. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE   WRESTING   OF  TEXTS. 

'  Every  word  of  God  is  pure.  Add  not  thou  unto  His  words,  lest 
He  reprove  thee,  and  thou  be  found  a  liar.'— Prov.  xxx.  5,  6. 

'AroTTug  dpuaiu  oaoi  e/c  fiepovg  rivbg  Kpivovac  to  oAov,  dX/ld  Tovvavriov  ek  tov 
hlov  rb  fiEpog. — Philo,  Ex.  qxi.  i7i  Gen.  Fragm.  (ed.  Mangey,  ii.  657). 

M;?  l3iaC6uEvoi  ra  vnb  rov  Qeov  deSo/xeva. — HiPPOLYTUS,  C.  Noetum,  9. 

'  In  iis  quae  aperte  in  Scriptiu-is  posita  sunt  inveniuntur  ilia  omnia 
quae  continent  fidem  moresque  vivendi,  sj^em  scilicet  et  caritatem.  — 
Aug.,  Be  Doctr.  Christ,  ii.  9. 

'  The  Scripture  stands,  not  in  cortice  verhorum,  but  inmedulldsensus.' 
—Vines,  Commons  Sermon,  1646. 

'The  interpretations  of  the  Scriptures  are  of  two  sorts— methodical 
and  solute  or  at  large.  For  this  divine  water  .  .  .  either  is  first 
forced  up  into  a  cistern,  and  from  thence  fetched  and  derived  for  use, 
or  else  it  is  drawn  and  received  in  buckets  and  vessels  immediately 
where  it  springeth.  The  former  sort  whereof,  though  it  seem  to  be 
the  more  ready,  yet  in  my  judgment  is  more  subject  to  corrupt.'— 
Bacon,  Advancement  of  Learning,  Book  II. 

'The  mere  first-impression  reader  is  always  liable  to  misappre- 
hend. The  number  of  texts  generally  misapplied,  the  character  and 
amount  of  that  misapplication,  are  perfectly  astonishing.'— Dean 
Alford. 

Owe  great  source  of  the  misinterpretation  of  the  Bible, 
and  the  consequent  wrongs  inflicted  upon  it,  has  been  the 
habit  of  treating  it  as  though  it  were  a  congeries  of  isolated 

218 


CAUSES  OF  ERROR  219 

texts.  This  may  sound  like  the  merest  truism,  but  the 
merest  truisms  often  need  to  be  repeated,  because  they 
tend  to  become  the  most  neglected  truths.  *  There  are,' 
says  Coleridge,  'some  truths  so  true  that  they  lie  in  the 
lumber  room  of  the  memory,  side  by  side  with  the  most 
exploded  errors.' 

To  act  thus  is  to  'rend  the  Urim  and  Thummim  from 
the  breastplate  of  judgment,  and  to  frame  oracles  by  pri- 
vate divination  from  each  letter  of  each  disjointed  gem 
.  .  .  deserted  by  the  Spii-it  which  shines  in  the  parts  only 
as  it  pervades  and  irradiates  the  whole.'  We  may  apply 
to  these  strange  mosaics— made  up  of  accommodated 
phrases,  incidental  allusions,  fancies,  traditions,  apologues, 
and  argumenta  ad  Jiominem—the  remark  of  St.  Irenaeus, 
that,  by  the  same  method,  you  might  break  up  the  mosaic 
of  a  king,  and  alter  its  constituent  pieces  into  the  semblance 
of  a  dog  or  of  a  fox.  And  this  is  practically  done  when 
rhetoric  is  turned  into  logic ;  the  fluid  words  of  poetry  into 
the  rigid  metaphysics  of  dogma;  the  obiter  dicta  audoris 
aliud  agent  is  into  supernatural  decisions  of  tremendous 
problems ;  tlie  popular  allusions  of  past  millenniums  into 
barriers  against  the  mighty  tide  of  scientific  progress ;  and 
warnings  of  temporal  calamity  into  menaces  of  everlasting 
torment.  Cornipfio  optimi  pessima.  Men  betray  the  Bible 
with  a  kiss. 

Any  collection  of  books  treated  as  the  Bible  has  been 
treated— snipped  into  phrases  and  fragments— dissevered 
from  their  context,  and  from  their  primary  historic  sense, 
and  all  regarded  as  equipollent— may  be  abused  to  prove 
anything.  When  it  is  thus  mishandled,  the  Bible  may  be 
quoted  in  support  of  any  number  of  propositions,  however 
self-contradictory,  however  intrinsically  absm-d,  however 
entirely  alien  from  its  own  general  spirit.     '  To  understand 


220  THE  BIBLE 

that  the  language  of  the  Bible  is  fluid  and  literary,  not 
rigid,  fixed,  and  scientific,'  is,  as  Matthew  Arnold  truly 
said,  '  the  first  step  to  a  right  understanding  of  the  Bible.'  ^ 

Stni  more  false  and  futile  may  be  the  conclusions  built 
upon  a  book  of  varied  contents,  when,  as  is  the  case  with 
the  Bible,  whole  systems  of  theology  are  read  between 
the  lines  of  it ;  and  colossal  superstnictures  built  upon  the 
narrow  base  of  some  separate  phrase.  The  Bible  has  been 
known  for  thousands  of  years  through  imperfect  transla- 
tions. It  has  been  elaborated  into  enormous  institutions, 
encumbered  with  alien  traditions,  explained  by  unnatural 
methods.  It  has  been  adopted  by  nations  who  have  been 
entirely  ignorant  of  the  modes  of  thought  and  modes  of 
expression  current  in  the  ages  and  countries  in  which  it 
originated.  Its  heterogeneous  elements,  divided  from 
each  other  by  centuries  of  progress  and  difference,  have 
been  dealt  with  as  though  they  were  one  homogeneous  and 
supernatural  whole.  Can  we  wonder  that  many  of  the 
inferences  which  professed  to  be  deduced  from  the  Bible 
have  been  contradictory,  perilous,  and  full  of  error  ? 

It  is  the  doctrine  of  the  supernatural  infallibility  of 
every  book  and  sentence  of  Scripture— 'notwithstanding 
the  repugnancy  of  the  doctrine  in  its  unqualified  sense  to 
Scripture,  reason,  and  common  sense  theoretically,  while 
to  aU  particulars  it  is  intractable,  unmaUeable,  and  alto- 
gether unprofitable  '—which  so  utterly  ruined  for  centuries 
the  sanity  and  honesty  of  Biblical  exegesis.  'On  what 
other  ground,'  asks  Coleridge,  'can  I  account  for  the 
whimsical  snlnnteTligiturs  of  our  numerous  harmonists — 
for  the  curiously  inferred  facts,  the  inventive  circumstan- 
tial detail,  the  complemental  and  supplemental  history, 
which,  in  the  utter  silence  of  all  historians  and  absence  of 

^  Literature  and  Dogma,  p.  xii. 


'TEXTS'  221 

all  historical  documents,  they  bring  to  light  by  mere  force 
of  logic  ?  iUlow  me  to  create  chasms  ad  libitum,  and  ad 
libitum  to  fill  them  np  with  imagined  facts  and  incidents, 
and  I  would  almost  undertake  to  harmonise  Falstaff's 
account  of  the  rogues  in  bucki'am  into  a  coherent  and 
consistent  narrative.' 

There  are  probably  thousands  of  uneducated  persons  who 
think  that  the  Bible  was  originally  written  in  that  atomistic 
form— in  those  separate  sentences  and  scraps  of  sentences 
—which  we  call '  texts.'  The  printing  of  the  Revised  Ver- 
sion in  paragraphs  instead  of  texts  will  gradually  help  to 
dissipate  this  delusion,  and  will  contribute  in  this  way,  as 
in  many  others,  to  restore  truer  conceptions  of  what  the 
Bible  is  and  means.  Even  those  who  know  that  the  Bible 
was  written,  like  all  other  books,  in  paragraphs,  are  un- 
aware how  late  was  the  origin  of  its  separation— and  some- 
times very  unintelligent  separation— into  chapters  and 
texts.  Among  the  Jews,  for  the  convenience  of  public 
reading  in  the  synagogue,  the  MSS.  of  the  Law  were 
marked  into  sections  {ParasJioth),  290  in  number,  marked 
with  as  (p) ;  and  into  smaller  paragraphs  {Sedarim) 
marked  with  a  d  (s),  379  in  number.  Similarly  the  Ilapli- 
taroth,  or  lessons  from  the  Prophets,  were  divided  into 
fifty-four.^  Our  division  of  the  Bible  into  chapters  ori- 
ginated, not  (as  is  often  said)  with  Hugo  de  Sancto  Caro 
(t  12G3),  but  with  our  great  Archbishop  Stephen  Lang- 
ton  (t  1228). 

The  habit  of  adducing  shreds  of  Scripture  phrases  as 
'proof  texts'  for  all  sorts  of  minute  and  inferential  doc- 
trines has  been  the  source  of  unnumbered  errors.     Those 

1  There  are  fifty-four  larger  Parashoth  which  marked  the  Sunday 
lessons.  See  Wildeboer,  Origin  of  the  Old  Testament  Canon  (E.T.),  p.  8. 
There  were  23,203  texts  in  the  Hebrew  Massorah. 


222  THE   BIBLE 

errors  have  been  multiplied  and  rendered  more  pernicious 
(1)  by  mistranslations;  (2)  by  attempts  to  allegorise  and 
spiritualise  plain  passages  into  irrelevant  exhortations  and 
dogmas ;  (3)  by  enormous  and  unwarrantable  inferences ; 
(4)  by  reading  modern  and  Western  ideas  into  ancient  and 
Eastern  modes  of  thought ;  and  (5)  by  a  total  divorce  of  sepa- 
rate passages  from  their  original  and  contextual  meaning. 

'  Twenty  doctors/  says  William  Tjmdale,  '  expound  one 
text  twenty  ways,  and  with  an  anti-theme  of  half  an  inch 
some  of  them  draw  a  thread  of  nine  days  long.'  ^ 

I  wiU  give  one  or  two  instances  of  this  perverse  citation 
and  use  of  texts— instances  which  might  be  indefinitely 
multiplied.  They  will  be  sufficient  to  put  us  on  oui'  guard 
against  that  wresting  of  the  Scriptures  which  had  begun 
in  the  days  of  the  Apostles  and  has  never  ceased  since 
then.-  They  will  serve  to  show  the  absurdity  of  attacks 
on  Scripture  which  have  nothing  to  do  with  Scripture. 
They  will  protect  us  against  sweeping  peremptory  inter- 
pretations, which  do  not  explain  but  explain  away.  They 
will  emancipate  us  from  dogmas  which  reproduce  the 
words  but  travesty  the  meaning  of  the  sacred  writers. 
When  we  are  told  that  '  the  Bible  says '  this  or  that,  they 
will  enable  us  to  reply  at  once  that '  the  Bible,'  as  a  whole, 
says  nothing  of  the  sort,  but  perhaps  the  very  reverse ;  and, 
very  often,  that  the  '  text '  specifically  quoted  means  some- 
thing entirely  different. 

1.  I  recently  read  a  contemptuous  attack  on  the  wisdom 
and  morality  of  the  Bible  on  the  ground  that  it  adopts  a 
Manichean  disparagement  of  the  human  body.  The  '  text ' 
quoted  in  proof  of  the  charge  was  Phil.  iii.  21— '  Who  shall 
change  our  I'ile  body.^ 

1  Tyndale,  Obedience  of  a  Christian  Man. 

2  2  Pet.  iii.  16.  CTpsfi'kova'.v.  So  ancient  was  the  crime  of  stretch- 
ing Scripture  on  the  rack ! 


'TEXTS'  223 

When  Archbishop  Whately  lay  on  his  deathbed  his 
chaplain  quoted  this  phrase.  *  The  Bible  does  not  say  that,' 
said  the  Archbishop.  '  Surely  it  does,'  replied  the  chaplain, 
turning  to  this  verse,  'Read  it  in  the  Greek,'  said 
Whately.  The  chaplain  read:  Sg  [leTaaxTjfiarioei  rd  acJua 
TTjg  Taneivtooeog  rjnu)v.  'Ah!'  said  the  Archbishop,  'the 
words  are  not  "  our  vile  body"  but  "  the  hody  of  our  humili- 
ation : "  that  is  something  very  different.' 

And  so  it  stands  corrected  in  the  Re\ased  Version. 
There  is  not  the  least  ground  for  charging  St.  Paul  with 
any  ascetic  or  neo-Platonic  contempt  for  this  our  mortal 
frame,  which  is  so  fearfully  or  wonderfully  made.  So  far 
from  resembling  the  philosopher  Plotinus,  who  blushed 
that  he  had  a  body,  St.  Paul  knew  and  taught  that  man's 
mortal  body  is  the  Temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

2.  Of  the  allegorical  misuses  of  Scripture  I  gave  one  or 
two  instances  in  a  previous  chapter.  It  has  always  been 
the  fashion  among  a  certain  school  of  thinkers  to  repre- 
sent that  method  as  a  badge  of  orthodoxy.'  Yet  as  an 
historical  fact,  it  is  in  origin  pagan  and  Jewish,  and  in 
practical  use  it  first  flourished  even  more  among  the  here- 
tics than  among  the  Catholics.  Irenaus  complains  that 
it  was  universal  among  the  Gnostics. 

1  Thus  Cardinal  Newman  says  that '  heresy  and  the  rejection  of  the 
allegorical  interpretation  have  always  gone  together.'  But  no  more 
damaging  condemnation  of  'orthodoxy'  could  be  pronounced  than 
the  false  assertion  that  it  depends  on  an  arbitrary  and  pagan  method 
of  distorting  plain  words  into  impossible  meanings.  Further  than 
this,  Father  after  Father  and  Schoolman  after  Schoolman  practically 
declares  that  the  method  of  allegorising  is  quite  useless  and  super- 
fluous, for  they  all  lay  it  down  as  a  rule  that  nothing  is  taught  'al- 
legorically '  in  Scripture  which  is  not  also  taught  plainly  and  literally 
in  other  passages  ;  so  that  by  their  own  admission  'the  mystic  sense' 
only  supplies  us  with  more  uncertain  and  more  enigmatic  repetitions 
of  doctrines  independently  set  forth. 


224  THE  BIBLE 

St.  Augustine  gives  an  amusing  specimen  of  the  way  in 
which  this  '  mystical  interpretation '  can  be  made  to  prove 
anything  or  everything.  The  Manichees  taught  that 
Chi-ist  did  not  retain  His  mortal  body  in  heaven,  but  left 
it  in  the  sun :  and  to  demonstrate  this  dogma  they  quoted 
Ps.  xix.  4,  '  In  them  hath  He  set  a  tabernacle  for  the  sun.' 
In  the  old  Latin  versions  this  ran  Posiiit  tabernaciilum  smim 
in  sole  ('  He  hath  placed  His  tabernacle  in  the  sun  ')•  Now 
tabernacle'  or  'tent,'  said  the  Manichees,  means  'the 
body,'  as  in  John  i.  14,  '  the  Word  tabernacled  (ecrKT^vaxrei') 
among  us.'  The  meaning  therefore  is  that  Christ  when 
He  ascended  left  His  mortal  body  behind  Him  in  the  sun  ! 

3.  Another  instance  may  be  quoted.  In  the  middle  ages 
it  was  common  to  appeal  to  St.  Peter's  reply  to  Christ, 
'Lord,  here  are  two  swords,'  in  proof  that  the  Pope  pos- 
sessed both  the  spiritual  and  the  temporal  power.  This 
was  specially  relied  upon  by  Boniface  VIII.,  who  also 
deduced  from  '  Feed  My  lambs '  the  inference  that  popes 
might  trample  on  the  decrees  of  kings !  Innocent  III. 
claimed  superiority  over  the  Emperor  because  God  had 
made  'the  greater  light'  (which  he  declared  to  represent 
the  Pope)  to  rule  the  day,  and  only  '  the  lesser  light '  (the 
Emperor)  to  rule  the  night.  Such  preposterous  perver- 
sions are  endless,  and  they  are  immeasurably  beneath 
contempt.  Luther  might  weU  exclaim  with  respect  to 
them,  '  O  reckless  impudence  and  wicked  ambition ! '  ^ 

1  What  masses  of  false  religion  have  been  built  on  allegorical  mis- 
interpretations of  '  We  have  an  altar ; '  on  '  Knowing  therefore  the 
terror  of  the  Lord ; '  on  wrong  interpretations  like  '  Take  no  thought 
for  the  moiTOw;'  on  'He  found  no  place  for  repentance;'  on  'Sell 
all  that  thou  hast ; '  on  '  This  is  my  body ; '  on  '  The  whole  head  is  sick, 
and  the  whole  heart  is  faint ; '  on  '  Where  the  tree  falleth  there  shall 
it  lie  ; '  or,  again,  on  wrong  renderings  like  '  We  are  saved  by  faith 
only,'  and  '  iff  they  shall  fall  away.' 


'ON  THIS  ROCK'  225 

4.  Perhaps  the  worst  injury  that  has  been  inflicted  on 
Scripture  by  the  perversion  of  texts  is  the  manner  in 
which  they  have  been  used  as  pin-points  on  which  to  build 
inverted  pyramids  of  theological  system,  and  that  despot- 
ism wliich  has  usually  proved  itself  to  be  so  deep  a  curse  to 
every  nation  which  lias  been  pusillanimous  enough  to 
submit  to  it. 

The  scanty,  sensuous,  passionate,  pictorial  character  of 
Hebrew  language  and  literatm-e  is  least  of  all  adapted  for 
this  torturing  process. 

Often  the  whole  atmosphere  of  religious  belief  has  been 
fiUed  with  smoke  by  what  Coleridge  calls  '  the  ever- widen- 
ing spiral  ergo  from  the  narrow  apertm'e  of  single  texts.' 

Round  the  interior  of  the  vast  dome  of  St.  Peter's  runs 
in  colossal  letters  the  inscription,  'Thou  art  Peter,  and 
upon  this  rock  will  I  build  My  Church.'  ^  The  exact  sig- 
nificance of  this  text  is  all  the  more  uncertain  because  we 
do  not  know  whether  our  Lord  was  speaking  in  Syriae  or 
in  Greek,  nor  can  we  tell  the  exact  shade  of  difference 
between  Petros  (Peter)  and  Petra  ('rock').  Its  general 
significance  seems  to  be  that  Peter  should  be  the  first  of 
the  Apostles  to  admit  the  Gentiles  into  the  Church ;  the 
first  of  the  Apostles  to  lay  the  foundation  of  a  wide  con- 
version.2 

It  has  always  been  a  matter  of  uncertainty  whether  by 
'  this  rock '  our  Lord  meant  Peter,  as  Roman  Catholics  aver ; 
or  Himself,  as  St.  Augustine  thought ;  or  the  faith  of  Peter's 
confession,  which  is  the  explanation  of  St.  Chrysostom. 
But  the  immense  majority  of  the  Fathers— and  to  Roman- 
ists at  any  rate  who  profess  to  follow  the  unanimis  consensus 
pattnim  this  ought,  on  their  own  principles,  to  be  decisive 

1  Matt.  xvi.  18.     'Quid  hajc  ad  liomam f —Bengel. 

2  Acts  ii.  41,  X.  44-48. 
15 


226  THE  BIBLE 

—combine  to  explain  it— as  do  Pope  Felix  V.  and  the 
Council  of  Trent— «o^  of  Peter  personally,  hut  of  his  confes- 
sion.^ And  even  if  supremacy  were  given  to  Peter,  there 
is  not  the  most  attenuated  ghost  of  evidence,  or  shadow 
of  argument,  to  show  that  he  could,  much  less  that  he  did, 
transmit  it  to  his  successors ;  or  that  those  successors  were 
the  Bishops  of  Rome ;  or  that  his  so-called  supremacy  bore 
the  most  infinitesimal  resemblance  to  the  enormous  super- 
structure of  fraud,  tyranny,  ruthlessness,  and  corruption 
which  was  reared  upon  this  pretence.  That  Christ's 
promise  gave  to  St.  Peter  no  supremacy,  no  infallibility, 
no  recognised  authority  over  the  other  Apostles,  is  proved 
again  and  again  in  the  most  decisive  manner  by  the  New 
Testament  itself.  It  is  further  a  matter  of  historical  cer- 
tainty that  St.  Peter  was  not  the  founder  of  the  Chui'ch  of 
Rome ;  there  is  an  absence  of  decisive  proof  that  he  ever  vis- 
ited Rome  at  aU;  if  he  ever  did  visit  it— as  is  probable- 
there  is  not  a  trace  of  any  evidence  that  he  had  anything 
more  to  do  with  it  than  that  he  was  martyi*ed  there.  It 
is  also  as  certain  as  anything  can  be  that,  for  three  cen- 
turies at  least,  the  right  of  Rome  to  tyrannise  over  any 
other  Church  was  decisively  rejected,  and  that  the  full- 
blown usurpation  of  autocracy  by  the  Bishop  of  Rome  was 
not  achieved  tiU  centuries  afterwards— and  then  only  in 
part  because  of  accidental  historic  circumstances,  and 
because  the  world  in  general,  covered  with  the  thickest 
darkness  of  ignorance,  was  deceived  by  the  gross  forgery 
of  the  Donation  of  Constantine,  the  Decretals  of  Isidore, 
and  forged  interpolations  in  the  writings  of  the  Greek 
Fathers,  which  even  deceived  St.  Thomas  Aquinas.  And 
yet  on  that  text,  and  on  that  text  almost  alone  until  it  was 

1  '  Super  iata  confessione  sedificabo  Ecelesiam  meam.'— Pope  Felix 
v.,  Ep.  5. 


'THE  POWER  OF  THE  KEYS'  227 

propped  up  by  usurpation  and  fraud,  was  built  a  colossal 
priestly  tyi'anny  which  was  sometimes  placed  in  the  hands 
of  men  consummately  wicked  and  worthless— of  men  like 
Benedict  IX.,  Alexander  Borgia,  or  Innocent  VIII. 

5.  But  other  errors,  no  less  serious,  have  sprung  from 
an  opposite  blunder  to  that  of  exorbitant  inferences— for 
opposite  blunders  have  been  pressed  with  equal  alacrity 
and  insistence  into  the  service  of  false  religion.  That 
opposite  blunder  is  a  literalism  which  insists  on  interpret- 
ing Eastern  and  ancient  and  metaphorical  phraseology 
into  modern  and  alien  notions  which  had  not  so  much  as 
emerged  above  the  horizon  in  the  days  of  the  ancient 
Hebrews.  Thus,  to  the  injury  of  unnumbered  souls,  the 
'  power  of  the  keys,'  and  the  power  to  forgive  sins,  which 
none  can  do  save  God  only,  have  been  arrogated  by  priests 
on  the  ground  of  the  promise  in  Matt.  xvi.  19.i     On  this 

1  The  metaphor  of  'binding'  and  'loosing'  does  not  occur  else- 
where in  Scripture  in  this  connection ;  but  we  learn  from  the  Talmud 
that,  in  the  Jewish  sense  (compare  Matt,  xxiii.  4),  it  did  not  mean  to 
remit  w  retain  sin,  but  to  declare  what  was  lawful  and  what  was  un- 
lawful, as  (e.g.)  the  Apostles  did  at  the  first  Synod  in  Jerusalem  (Acts 
XV.  28,  29),  and  as  St.  Paul  did  as  regards  circumcision.  Nor  is  John 
XX.  21-23  applicable  to  the  claim  to  confer  absolution  in  the  Komish 
sense.  None  can  forgive  sin  but  God  only,  and  the  Apostles  only 
remitted  or  retained  sins,  even  with  their  miraculous  powers,  by  the 
ministry  of  the  word  (Acts  ii.  38,  iv.  12,  xiii.  38,  39,  xvi.  31 ;  John  iii. 
36 ;  Rom.  v.  1 ;  1  John  ii.  1 ;  Tert.  De  Judic.  p.  21).  'You  who  affect 
to  remit  sin,'  says  Dr.  Burnett,  'prove  your  possession  of  the  mira- 
culous power  which  accompanied  such  a  gift.'  Further,  the  promise 
was  not  to  the  Apostles  only,  but  to  '  all  the  disciples '  who  were  present 
(compare  Luke  xxiv.  33).  It  was  a  commission  to  the  society,  and 
has  been  usurped  by  those  who  falsely  pretended  to  be  the  only 
Christian  priests.  Once  more,  the  'remit,'  like  the  'retain,'  is  re- 
ferred not  to  individuals,  but  to  classes  {av  rtvuv  ,  .  .  avrolg,  see 
Westcott,  ad  loc.) ;  and,  as  even  Peter  Lombard  teaches  in  his  Sen- 


228  THE   BIBLE 

text  has  been  based  tlie  deadly  system  of  auricular  con- 
fession. 

But  of  what  avail  can  it  be  to  quote  this  text  as  sufficient 
to  support  the  system  of  the  confessional,  when  we  know 
that '  the  keys '  and  '  binding '  and  '  loosing '  were  common 
Jewish  metaphors  which  have  not  the  smallest  bearing  on 
the  pretensions  which  they  have  been  adduced  to  maintain  ? 
which,  even  if  they  had,  belong  to  all  true  Christians,  and 
not  in  any  sense  peculiarly  to  '  priests ; '  and  which  have 
been  branded  in  then*  evil  results  by  the  unanimous  voice 
of  history  and  of  living  experience  in  age  after  age. 
Scripture  only  teaches  us  to  confess  to  God  (Ps.  xxxii.  5 ; 
Josh.  vii.  19 ;  Ezra  x.  11 ;  Dan.  ix.  4),  or  'to  one  another' 
(Jas.  V.  16),  not  to  'priests,'  since  none  can  forgive  sins 
but  God  only.  '  Quid  ergo  mihi  est  cum  hominibus,'  asks 
St.  Augustine,  *ut  audiant  confessiones  meas,  quasi  ipsi 
sanaturi  sunt  omnes  languores  meos  ?  Curiosum  genus  ad 
inquirendam  vifam  alienam,  desidiosum  ad  corrigendam 
suam ; '    and  even  St.  Cyprian  quotes  under  this  head 

J  'Maledictiis  qui  spem  Jiahet  in  homine.'  ^ 

\      6.  Again,  when  Luther,  abandoning  the  modern  Romish 
doctrine  of  transubstantiatiou,  adopted  that  of  consub- 

tentice,  is  not  a  power  solvendi  and  ligandi,  but  ostendendi  sohdos  rel 
ligatos  (lib.  iv.  dist.  14-20).  The  absolution,  he  says,  is  not  judicial, 
but  the  declaration  of  God's  decree  ;  just  as  the  Jewish  priest  did  not 
cleanse  lepers,  but  declared  them  clean.  'The  sinner,'  he  says  (quot- 
ing Cassiodorus),  'is  forgiven  by  God  as  soon  as  he  repents,  and  is 
not  therefore  liberated  by  the  priest  from  God's  anger,  from  which 
his  repentance  set  him  free.'  See  Dean  Plumptre,  Confession  and 
Absolution,  p.  4.  There  is  not  a  trace  of  the  form  Absolvo  te  before 
the  thirteenth  century.  The  'power  of  the  keys '  in  Jewish  metaphor 
simply  means  the  right  to  teach  (Luke  xi.  52). 

1  Aug.  Conf.  X.  3.  Cypr.  De  Lapsis,  17.  Jer.  in  Matt.  xvi.  19, 
Qmun  apud  Deum  non  sententia  sacerdotiim  sed  reorum  vita  queeratur. 


PERVERSION  OF  TEXTS  229 

stantiation,  which  was  rejected  by  Zwingli  and  the  Swedish 
Reformers,  he  thought  it  sufficient  to  knock  down  all 
arguments  by  constantly  repeating,  and  by  constantly 
writing  with  his  finger  on  the  table,  the  words  '  This  is  My 
body.'  Yet  no  argument  coidd  be  more  intrinsically  feeble 
than  the  insistence  on  the  material  interpretation  of  the 
text,  in  spite  of  the  proofs  that  it  could  have  no  such  mean- 
ing. There  was  no  more  reason  to  press  the  word  'is' 
literally  than  to  press  it  in  such  cases  as  '  the  seven  good 
kine  are  seven  years.'  Such  a  materialistic  interpretation 
is  pressed  in  defiance  of  our  Lord's  own  explanation  and 
warning :  '  The  fiesh  profiteth  nothing :  the  ivords  which  I 
speak  unto  you,  they  are  spirit  and  they  are  life ; '  as  weU 
as  of  the  fact  that  when  He  spoke  His  hodi/  and  the  bread 
were  two  separate  and  distinct  things,  so  that  it  would  have 
been  impossible  for  them  to  understand  the  words  other- 
wise than  symbolically. 

Seeing  that  when  oui*  Lord  spoke  He  had  not  yet  been 
sacrificed  there  could  be  no  excuse  for  maintaining  that 
*  My  body '  could  only  mean  the  mortal  flesh.  Seeing,  fur- 
ther, that  the  metaphor  of  '  eating '  was  perfectly  familiar 
to  the  Jews  as  implying  '  close  union  with  '—as  for  instance 
in  Rabbinic  phrase,  '  to  eat  of  the  years  of  Sliechinah,'  and 
in  the  Book  of  Ecclesiasticus  (xxiv.  21), '  Tliey  that  eat  me 
(Wisdom)  shall  yet  be  hungry  '—it  is  clear  that  the  reitera- 
tion of  the  '  text '  had  no  real  bearing  on  the  view  which 
it  was  quoted  to  support. 

7.  The  neglect  of  the  context  has  also  been  a  constant 
source  of  the  error  of  quoting  as  Scripture  what  is  not 
Scripture  at  all. 

It  used  to  be  common  to  see  in  schools  the  words  '  Touch 
not ;  taste  not;  handle  nof  (Col.  ii.  21).  Tlie  words  in 
themselves  were  sufficiently  senseless  as  a  universal  com- 


230  THE  BIBLE 

mand ;  but  besides  this,  as  quoted  by  St.  Paul,  they  are  so 
far  from  representing  any  advice  of  his  that  they  belong 
to  the  rules  of  that  ascetic  Gnosticism  which  he  is  reject- 
ing, and  which  it  was  the  main  object  of  his  Epistle  to 
condemn.  The  passage  from  which  they  are  borrowed 
used  to  be  a  stock  argument  in  favour  of  fasting.  It  is 
in  reality  an  emphatic  declaration  of  the  inefiicacy  of 
fasting.  For  the  true  meaning  of  the  passage  was  for  the 
fii'st  time  made  clear  to  many  English  readers  by  the 
Revised  Version ;  and  so  far  from  recommending  asceti- 
cism, it  expressly  lays  down  the  rule  that  the  precepts  and 
doctrines  of  humanly  invented  externalism  'have  indeed 
a  show  of  wisdom  in  will- worship,  and  humility,  and  se- 
verity to  the  body;  but  are  not  of  any  value  against  the 
indulgence  of  the  fJeshJ 

8.  The  doctrine  of  'eternal  torments'  has  been  again 
and  again  '  proved '  by  Is.  xxxiii.  14,  '  Wlio  among  us  shall 
dwell  ivith  the  devouring  fire  f  Who  among  ns  shall  dwell 
with  everlasting  hurnings  ? '  Even  a  moderate  study  of  the 
context  might  have  sufficed  to  show  that  the  verse  has  not 
the  most  remote  connection  with  that  terrific  dogma.  No 
such  doctrine,  it  may  be  confidently  affirmed,  was  ever  on 
the  horizon  of  the  Prophets,  or  other  Scripture  wi-iters, 
before  (at  the  earliest)  the  days  of  the  Exile.  The  passages 
quoted  in  favour  of  it  from  the  Old  Testament  are  only 
relevant  in  erroneous  versions ;  or  when  ii-relevant  conno- 
tations are  read  into  them  ;  or  when  they  are  pressed  into 
impossible  syllogisms.  Isaiah  is  speaking  mainly  of  tem- 
poral judgments  (compare  xxxi.  9) ;  and  the  exclamation 
here  referred  to  is  simply  the  terrified  complaint  of  the 
people,  '  How  can  we  possibly  bear  the  ravaging  and  con- 
flagration of  the  land  by  our  enemies  with  which  we  are 
threatened  ? '    If  the  text  prove  anything  at  all,  it  tends 


DISTORTED   METAPHORS  231 

to  prove  the  exact  reverse  of  the  doctrine  in  support  of 
which  it  is  quoted,  for  it  shows  that  in  the  language  of 
Eastern  hyperbole  the  word  '  everlasting '  and  its  equiva- 
lents were  constantly  used  of  transitory  and  temporal 
afflictions. 

9.  The  phrases  of  the  New  Testament  are  interpreted 
in  the  same  bare  and  bald  way,  without  any  reference  to 
history,  literature,  and  the  common  laws  of  Eastern  lan- 
guage—just as  though  they  had  first  appeared  in  some 
book  of  yesterday.  The  words  of  Christ  and  of  the 
Apostles  are  habitually  forced  into  senses  accordant  with 
popular  dogma,  without  any  reference  at  all  to  the  mean- 
ing of  the  Old  Testament  passages  on  which  they  are 
founded. 

Thus  the  fearful  metaphors,  to  be  'cast  into  hell  fire,' 
and  'where  their  worm  dieth  not,  and  the  fii'e  is  not 
quenched '  (whicli  occurs  in  Mark  ix.  48,  but  is  interpolated 
into  verses  44  and  4G),  are  part  of  a  parabolic  passage  so 
entirely  built  on  Jewish  metaphors  and  idioms  that  apart 
from  them  it  cannot  be  understood.  It  is  quoted  as  a 
decisive  proof  of  '  endless  torments.'  Its  bearing  on  such 
a  dogma  evaporates  to  nothing  when  we  examine  it.  In 
the  first  place,  'hell'  can  only  mean  what  the  original 
word  'Gehenna'  means;  and  'Gehenna'  was  the  vaguest 
and  mo.st  metaphorical  word  of  later  Jewish  theology.  In 
our  Lord's  time  Gehenna  was  a  pleasant  valley  outside  Jeru- 
salem ;  but  five  centuries  earlier  it  had  been  first  desecrated 
by  Moloch  worship,  then  defiled  with  corpses,  and  lastly 
purified  from  pestilence  by  huge  fires.  To  have  the  dead 
body  thrown  into  Gehenna  was  a  terrible  indignity,  and 
became  a  metaphor  for  severest  punishment ;  but  the  use 
of  the  phrase  in  this  proverbial  way  no  more  sanctions 
the  belief  in  the  '  hell '  of  the  middle  ages  than  the  use  of 


232  THE  BIBLE 

Tartarus  in  2  Peter  ii.  4  shows  that  the  author  intended 
to  vouch  for  the  stories  of  Ixion  and  the  Danaides;  or 
than  Luke  xvi.  22  proves  that  Abraham  literally  carries 
the  millions  of  the  blessed  dead  in  his  actual  bosom. 
Further,  our  Lord  is  quoting  almost  verbally  from  Is.  Lxvi. 
24;  and  Isaiah— or  the  later  Prophet  who  wrote  that 
chapter— is  describing  in  highly  metaphorical  terms  how 
men  of  various  nations  shall  come  to  Jerusalem  to  see— 
not  the  living  torments,  hut  the  consumed  and  consuming  car- 
cases of  the  rebels  against  God.  On  such  isolated  phrases 
we  have  no  warrant  for  building  up  vast  and  terrific 
doctrines  which  run  counter  to  many  plain  passages  of 
Scripture ;  and  to  its  representation  of  God's  mercy ;  and 
to  the  moral  sense  of  mankind— which  is  itself  a  source 
of  the  divinest  revelation. 

I  have  only  given  these  few  instances  by  way  of  illus- 
tration ;  but  they  are  more  than  sufficient  to  prove  to  all 
men  of  open  minds  the  truth  of  the  rules  that  (i),  as  the 
wisest  Rabbis  said, 

'  The  Scripture  speaks  in  the  tongue  of  the  sons  of  men ; ' 
that  (ii),  as  St.  Augustine  said, 

'  Only  the  real  meaning  of  Scripture  is  Scripture ; ' 
and  that  (iii),  as  is  said  in  the  '  Imitatio  Christi,' 

'All  Holy  Scripture  ought  to  be  read  in  the  spirit  in 
which  it  was  written.' 

The  perspicuity  of  Scripture  is  absolute  as  to  every 
truth  which  is  essential  for  salvation.  '  Whatever  is  neces- 
sary,' said  St.  Chrysostom,  '  is  clear.'  As  to  those  truths 
which  are  required  for  man's  guidance,  whosoever  walketh 
in  the  way,  even  fools,  shaU  not  err  therein.^  But  when 
Scripture  is  quoted  for  controversial  purposes,  it  is,  in 
hundreds  of  instances,  quoted  to  all  intents  as  falsely 
1  Is.  XXXV.  8. 


'TEXTS'  233 

as  it  was  by  the  woman  who,  on  her  deathbed,  told  her 
clergyman  that  she  was  not  called  upon  to  repent,  because 
'  the  gifts  and  calling  of  God  are  without  repentance.'  Tlio 
Bible  does  not  say  one  tithe  of  the  things  which  it  has  been 
asserted  to  say.  The  Bible  as  such  does  not,  and  cannot, 
say  anj'thing  on  points  which  were  not  even  in  the  view 
of  the  majority  of  its  writers.  What  is  said  by  a  parti- 
cular text— even  when  we  have  convinced  ourselves  tluit 
the  text  is  neither  mistranslated,  nor  misinterpreted,  nor 
metaphorical  and  symboHc,  nor  torn  from  the  significance 
of  its  context,  nor  unduly  pressed— may  still  need  correc- 
tion by,  and  co-ordination  with,  other  texts,  and  may  after 
all  only  express  the  isolated  sentiment  of  an  individual 
wi'iter,  not  a  final  oracle  of  God. 

Very  vdse  on  this  subject  are  the  remarks  of  John  Wes- 
ley. When  confronted  with  'texts'  which  were  adduced 
to  prove  the  doctrine  of  reprobation  to  endless  torments, 
he  replied,  '  Whatever  that  Scripture  proves,  it  can  never 
prove  this.  Whatever  its  true  moaning,  this  cannot  be  its 
true  meaning.  Do  you  ask  "Wliat  is  its  true  meaning, 
then  ? "  If  I  say  "  I  know  not,"  you  have  gained  nothing, 
for  there  are  many  Scriptures,  the  tme  sense  whereof 
neither  you  nor  I  shall  know  till  death  is  swallowed  up  in 
victory.  But  this  I  know— hette)'  it  ivere  to  say  it  had  no 
sense  at  all  than  to  say  it  had  such  a  sense  as  this.  Let  it 
mean  what  it  will,  it  cannot  mean  that  the  Judge  of  all 
the  world  is  unjust.  No  Scripture  can  mean  that  God  is 
not  Love,  or  that  His  mercy  is  not  over  all  His  works.' 

Christ  only  is  the  Eternal  Truth.  Christ  only  in  the 
full  and  perfect  sense  is  the  Word  of  God. 

And  here,  surely,  the  words  of  the  late  Dr.  Thirlwall, 
Bishop  of  vSt.  Davids,  are  very  apposite.  '  The  Old  Testa- 
ment history,'  he  says,  '  so  far  as  it  is  a  narrative  of  civil 


234  THE   BIBLE 

and  political  transactions,  has  no  essential  connection  with 
any  religious  truth;  and  if  it  had  been  lost,  though  we 
should  have  been  left  in  ignorance  of  much  that  we  desired 
to  know,  our  treasure  of  Christian  doctrine  would  have 
remained  unimpaired.  The  numbers,  migrations,  wars, 
battles,  conquests,  and  reverses  of  Israel  have  nothing  in 
common  with  the  teachings  of  Christ,  with  the  way  of 
salvation,  with  the  fruits  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  They  belong 
to  a  totally  different  order  of  subjects.  They  are  not  to  be 
confounded  with  the  spiritual  revelation  contained  in  the 
Old  Testament,  much  less  with  the  fulness  of  Grace  and 
Truth  which  came  by  Jesus  Christ.' 


CHAPTER  XVII 

SCRIPTUEE   DIFFICULTIES. 

'  Hanc  garrula  anus,  banc  delirus  seuex,  hanc  sophista  verbosus, 
lianc  iiniversi  praesumiint,  laeerant,  doceut  antequam  discant.'— Jer. 
Ep.  liii.  7. 

'  Oh  let  Thy  Scriptures  be  my  pure  delight ;  let  me  not  be  deceived 
in  them,  neither  let  me  deceive  by  them.'— St.  Augustine. 

'  Wherein  are  some  things  hard  to  be  imderstood,  which  the  igno- 
rant and  unstedfast  wrest,  an  they  do  also  the  other  Scriptures,  unto 
their  own  destruction.' —2  Pet.  iii.  16. 

The  knowledge  of  mankind  advances  continually,  and  the 
advance  of  knowledge  is  the  result  of  continuous  revelation. 
The  new  truths  which  God  is  ever  making  known  to  us  in 
nature  and  history  are  of  their  very  natm-e  sacred ;  for  they 
are  truths,  and  they  must  all  be  considered  in  the  gi-eat 
system  of  human  belief  respecting  God,  Man,  and  the 
Universe. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  faith  l)ut  cowardice,  not  piety  but 
obsciu-antism,  to  ignore  what  God  has  taught  us  by  science, 
and  metaphysics,  and  literatui-e,  and  historic  criticism  in 
all  its  branches.  Scripture  must  be  henceforth  interpreted 
with  reference  to  something  besides  the  accretion  of  arbi- 
trary fancies,  which  1ms  been  stereotyped  in  long  obsolete 
commentaries.  Rabbinism  and  scholasticism  in  exegesis 
are  no  longer  possible  to  any  reasonably  educated  or  in- 

235  , 


236  THE   BIBLE 

dependent  mind.  They  would  never  have  been  possible 
at  all  if  men  had  judged  of  Scripture  by  its  own  claims 
and  by  its  actual  phenomena,  instead  of  seeing  it  magnified 
and  refracted  through  the  dense  fogs  of  ignorant  tradition. 
To  accept  in  these  days  the  views  of  the  Rabbis,  the  Fathers, 
the  mediaeval  commentators,  the  Schoolmen,  or  the  post- 
Reformation  bibliolaters,  without  the  largest  modification, 
involves  a  treason  against  light  and  knowledge.  Criticism 
and  comparative  rehgion  are  abeady  sciences,  and  no 
competent  interpreter  can  disregard  their  conclusions. 
What  should  we  think  of  an  historian  of  Rome  who  should 
attempt  to  relate  the  story  of  the  kings  "with  no  reference  to 
the  researches  of  Niebuhr,  Mommsen,  and  their  successors  ? 

In  this  chapter  I  propose  to  consider  some  of  the  narra- 
tives—both supernatural  and  moral— which  constitute 
serious  difficulties  to  many  inquirers,  and  are  made  the 
topic  for  ridicule  by  sceptical  critics.  It  will  be  my  object 
to  illustrate  how  little  ground  there  is  for  such  assaults, 
and  how  completely  such  difficulties  vanish  when  the 
narratives  are  regarded  in  the  light  thrown  upon  them 
by  unbiassed  investigation. 

It  would  not  be  possible,  nor  does  it  fall  within  my 
present  scope,  to  deal  with  all  the  objections  wliich  have 
been  urged  against  the  propriety  or  truth  of  some  of  the 
Bible  narratives.  If  I  touch  on  one  or  two  it  may  suffice 
to  show  how  much  less  difficult  they  become  when  they 
are  regarded  from  the  right  point  of  view. 


The  Bible  is  assailed  on  the  ground  that  it  contains 
coarse  and  unedifying  stories. 
Let  us,  then,  take  one  or  two  instances  and  examine  them. 


THE  STORY  OF  LOT  237 

1.  The  story  of  Lot,  related  in  Gen.  xix.  30-38,  has  al- 
ways been  a  subject  of  difficulty.  It  greatly  exercised  the 
ingenuity  of  some  of  the  Fathers  to  show  any  reason  why 
such  a  tale  should  find  a  place  on  the  page  of  sacred  Ute- 
rature.  Taken  as  a  whole,  the  books  of  Scripture  are 
incomparably  more  pure  and  free  from  stain  than  any  of 
the  other  bibles  of  humanity.  To  what  good  end,  then, 
was  such  a  story  admitted  ?  ^ 

It  is  often  overlooked  that  ethnographical  and  other 
detaOs,  which  have  lost  their  interest  for  us,  may  yet  have 
had  an  intense  interest  for  the  age  and  nation  to  which 
they  were  addressed.  The  fortunes  of  Israel  were  closely 
and  fatally  linked  ^\dth  those  of  the  cognate  tribes  of  Moab 
and  Ammon.  Any  story  of  their  origin  would  have  had 
for  the  Hebrews  no  ordinary  significance. 

Now,  what  was  the  exact  origin  and  intention  of  this 
story,  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  afiu-m.  We  have  no  data 
to  go  upon.  Nor  does  it  much  concern  us  in  any  way  to 
decide  whether  it  was  at  all  meant  for  a  narrative  of  fact, 
or  whether  it  represents  in  a  concrete  form  some  ethno- 
graphic affinity,  perhaps  disguised  and  distorted  by  the 
bitterness  of  national  hatred.  But  when  the  story  is  de- 
nounced as  a  blot  on  the  sacred  page,  we  have  to  remember 
two  things : 

i.  The  rigid  external  modesty  and  propriety  of  modem 
and  English  hterature  is  disgusted  and  offended  by  state- 
ments which  gave  no  such  shock  to  ancient  and  Eastern 
readers.  What  may  be  said,  and  what  may  not  be  said, 
with  plainness,  depends  gi*eatly  upon  national  custom; 
and  what  we  call '  coarseness '  is  a  thing  so  far  relative  that 
its  offensive  character  is  determined  to  a  great  extent  by 

1  Celsus  attacked  it,  and  Origen  defends  it  by  giving  it  an  allego- 
rical sense. 


238  THE  BIBLE 

the  standard  of  the  times.  There  are  other  passages  of 
Scripture,  happily  disguised  by  the  euphemism  of  trans- 
lations, which,  if  their  exact  meaning  were  understood, 
could  not  be  read  without  a  blush.  In  old  days,  they 
would  have  raised  no  blush  upon  the  purest  cheek,  because 
no  habit  of  reticence  upon  such  subjects  had  been  fixed 
by  the  demands  of  national  propriety.  The  keenness  of 
modern  English  sensibility  on  such  subjects  has  done  much 
to  preserve  oui*  hteratui-e  from  blemish ;  but  it  is  of  recent 
growth.  Ladies  in  the  days  of  the  Tudors  commonly  used 
language  which  would  seem  gi'ossly  immodest  now.  The 
plain-spokenness  of  Orientals  involved  no  necessary  offence 
against  abstract  morality. 

ii.  Modern  investigation  makes  it  probable  that  this 
story  about  Lot  is  merely  a  symbolic  way  of  illustrating 
certain  tribal  relations.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  in 
early  days,  before  the  habits  of  literary  expression  were 
formed,  and  when  the  power  of  penning  the  simplest  story 
was  regarded  as  an  astonishing  accomplishment,  language 
was  of  necessity  pictorial.  National  afiinities  were  de- 
scribed under  physical  symbols.  It  is  at  least  possible 
that  the  three  cases  of  gross  immorality  narrated  in  the 
Book  of  Genesis— namely,  those  of  Reuben,  Judah,  and 
Lot— are  thus  figurative.  'The  Hebrews,'  say  learned 
scholars,  'were  undoubtedly  accustomed  to  state  facts  as 
to  relationships,  and  fusions  of  clans  and  communities 
under  the  figures  of  paternity  and  marriage ;  and  this  plan 
inevitably  led  in  certain  cases  to  the  figm*ative  supposition 
of  very  strange  connections.  The  form  of  the  figure  was 
probably  not  repulsive  when  first  adopted.  Marriage  witli 
a  stepmother  is  a  Semitic  practice  of  great  antiquit}^,  and 
at  one  time  was  known  to  the  Israelites.'  The  story  of 
Reuben  therefore  may  aUude  to  some  obscure  and  now 


HOSEA  239 

forgotten  combination  against  the  unity  of  Israel  and  the 
hegemony  of  Joseph.  The  story  of  Lot  wears  a  very 
different  complexion  if  we  regard  it  as  an  exhibition  of 
unknowTi  traditions  about  the  connection  between  the 
Israelites  and  the  tribes  of  Moab  and  Ammon.' 

2.  Take,  again,  the  pathetic  story  of  Hosea  as  narrated 
in  Hos.  i.  1-3,  iii.  1-3.  It  is  not  unnatural  that  such  a 
story  should  have  been  subjected  to  hostile  criticism,  or 
that  abundant  casuistry  should  have  been  expended  in  its 
defence  by  those  who  understood  it  to  mean  that  God 
commanded  His  Prophet  to  take  in  marriage  a  degraded 
and  immoral  woman.  It  is,  to  say  the  least,  doubtful 
whether  such  is  the  true  interpretation.  Scholars  who 
have  profoundly  studied  Semitic  methods  of  expression 
think  that  the  opprobrious  name  given  to  Hosea's  wife, 
Gomer-bath-Diblaim,  is  proleptic— i.e.  that  it  applies  to 
her  subsequent  shamelessness,  not  to  her  character  when 
the  Propliet  took  her  to  wife.  It  was  the  anguish  caused 
by  her  infidelity  that  first  woke  Hosea  to  the  sense  of 
Israel's  infidelity  to  Jehovah,  whose  relation  to  the  Chosen 
People  was  repeatedly  represented  under  the  type  of  mar- 
riage. 'God  speaks  in  the  events  of  history  and  the 
experiences  of  human  life.  He  spoke  to  Amos  in  the 
thundering  march  of  the  Assyrians,  and  He  spoke  to 
Hosea  in  the  shame  of  his  blighted  home.  The  struggle 
of  Hosea's  affection  -with  the  burning  sense  of  shame  and 
grief  when  he  found  his  wife  unfaithfid,  is  altogether  in- 

'  See  Robertson  Smith,  Prophets  of  Israel,  p.  407;  Encycl.  Britan., 
art.  'Judah;'  Journ.  of  Philol.  ix.  86,  94;  Old  Testament  in  Jeuish 
Church,  p.  438.  In  1  Chron.  ii.  24  the  true  translation,  according  to 
the  Septuagint,  is,  'And  after  Hozron  was  dead,  Caleb  went  into 
Ephratah,  wifo  of  Hezron  his  father,  and  she  bare  him  Ashnr,  the 
father  {i.e.  the  chief)  of  Tekoah.' 


240  THE  BIBLE 

conceivable  unless  his  first  love  had  been  pure,  and  fuU 
of  trust  in  the  purity  of  its  object.  In  the  midst  of  his 
great  unhappiness  he  learned  to  comprehend  the  secret  of 
Jehovah's  heart  in  His  dealings  with  faithless  Israel,  and 
recognised  the  misery  of  his  married  life  as  no  meaning- 
less calamity,  but  the  ordinance  of  Jehovah,  who  called 
him  to  the  work  of  a  prophet.  This  he  expresses  by  say- 
ing that  it  was  in  directing  him  to  marry  Gomer  that 
Jehovah  fii-st  spoke  to  him.'  In  the  agony  of  personal 
experience  he  learnt  the  true  spmtual  meaning  of  the 
marriage  tie  as  a  doctrine  of  holy  love.  He  was  taught  to 
understand  that  it  should  be  separated  from  henceforth 
from  the  carnal  aUoy  which  disgi*aced  the  crude  nature- 
worship  of  idolaters,  and  that  it  was  an  emblem  of  the 
union  between  Jehovah  and  His  people,  as  it  signifies  to 
us  the  mystical  union  which  is  betwixt  Christ  and  His 
Church. 

Read  in  this  light  of  modern  criticism,  what  is  there  in 
the  story  of  Hosea  but  what  is  ia  the  highest  degree  pure 
and  noble  ? 

n 

Let  us  now  turn  to  another  quarter  in  which  the  Bible 
is  assailed. 

It  is  constantly  represented  to  the  multitude  as  a  book 
which  abounds  in  stupendous  supernatural  interferences 
for  inadequate  ends ;  as  a  book  which  makes  impossible 
demands  upon  our  credulity,  and  asks  us  to  beheve  in  the 
most  fabulous  portents. 

I  am  not  here  about  to  enter  upon  the  whole  question 
of  miracles.  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  feel  any  doubt 
that  God  has,  on  due  occasions  and  for  adequate  pui-poses, 
in  the  days  of  the  Old  as  well  as  in  the  days  of  the  New 


MIRACLES  241 

Dispensation,  made  Himself  signally  and  supematurally 
manifest  in  the  affairs  of  men.  The  miracle  of  Creation 
—the  mii-acle  which  fii'st  called  light  out  of  darkness  and 
order  out  of  chaos— the  mii*acle  which  fii-st  thi'illed  the 
spark  of  life  into  inanimate  matter  and  evolved  from  its 
dust  the  rich  diversities  of  sentient  existence— the  miracle 
of  the  human  nature  of  the  Son  of  God— those  two  mi- 
racles of  the  Creation  and  the  Incarnation  involve  and 
include  to  my  mind  the  credibility  of  all  other  miracles. 
I  withhold  my  credence  from  no  occmTence— however 
much  it  may  be  called  'miraculous'— te?Mcfe  is  adequately 
attested;  ivkich  was  wrought  for  adequate  ends ;  and  u'hich 
is  in  accordance  with  the  revealed  laws  of  God's  immediate 
dealings  with  man.  I  may  hold  that  some  stories  repre- 
sented as  miraculous  may  have  borrowed  from  error  or 
from  metaphor  their  supernatural  complexion.  I  may 
hold  that  the  providential  has  sometimes  been  confused 
with  the  supernatural.  I  may  attach  to  mu*acles  less 
evidential  value  because,  in  many  cases,  I  may  regard  the 
miracles  not  as  tlie  attestation  of  other  truths,  but  as 
being  themselves  attested  by  those  truths,  which  depend 
on  deeper  and  more  cogent  evidence.  I  hold  myself  at 
perfect  liberty  to  believe  that  some  events  once  regarded 
as  miraculous  were  due  to  the  action  of  laws  once  unno- 
ticed or  ill-understood ;  and  that  others  may  be  but  poetic 
and  symbolic  descriptions,  and  may  have  been  prosaically 
misintei'preted  from  incidents  in  a  cycle  of  ancient  and 
poetic  legend.  I  therefore  admit  the  right  to  consider  each 
miraculous  narrative  with  reference  to  the  amount  and 
credibility  of  the  whole  testimony  on  which  it  rests ;  and 
then  it  seems  to  me  that  to  a  mind  which  realises  the 
myriadfold  complexity  of  the  mu'acles  in  the  midst  of 
which  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being— to  a  mind 

16 


242  THE  BIBLE 

that  grasps  the  truth  that  the  word  '  Nature '  is  absolutely 
meaningless  without  the  word  'God'— there  would  be  a 
gi-eater  abstract  and  d  priori  difficulty  in  denying  that 
miracles  have  ever  happened  than  in  asserting  the  reality 
of  their  occurrence.  About  the  miracles  performed  by 
our  Lord  and  Savioui-  Jesus  Chi-ist— about  the  Incarnation, 
the  Resurrection,  and  the  Ascension,  which  are  the  most 
stupendous  of  them  all— I  can  still  say  with  all  my  heart, 
'  Manet  immota  fides.' 

But  the  Old  Testament  narratives  which  have  been  made 
the  main  subject  of  attack  are  those  which  have  in  aU 
probability  been  most  completely  misunderstood. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  narrative  of  the  Six  Days' 
Creation,  and  the  ends  which  it  was  meant  to  serve;  I 
wiU  now  say  a  word  of  the  story  of  the  FaU. 

i.  When  infidels  turn  it  into  ridicule  they  ridicule  one 
of  the  profoundest  and  most  instructive  lessons  which 
was  ever  penned  for  the  warning  and  instruction  of  man- 
kind. 

They  are  most  certainly  not  called  upon— nor  is  any 
Christian  called  upon— to  beUeve  that  there  was  an  actual 
garden,  an  actual  talking  serpent,  actual  trees  of  which 
one  bestowed  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  and  the 
other  an  immortality  of  life.  Such  an  interpretation  was 
rejected  two  thousand  years  ago  by  Philo,  and  it  has  been 
rejected  by  many  Christian  interpreters  since— and  even 
by  English  bishops  like  Warburton  and  Horsley.  The 
Bible  is  a  book  of  Eastern  origin,  and  can  only  be  under- 
stood by  the  methods  of  Eastern  literatm*e.  Now  there 
is  no  other  Eastern  book  in  the  world  which  we  should 
have  dreamed  of  understanding  literally  if  it  introduced 
speaking  serpents  and  magic  trees.  Even  the  Rabbis, 
stupidly  literal  as  were  their  frequent  methods,  were  per- 


THE  FALL  243 

f  ectly  aware  that  the  story  of  the  Fall  was  a  philosopheme 
—a  \ivid  pictorial  representatiou  of  the  origin  and  growth 
of  sin  in  the  human  heart.  The  inspii-ed  character  of  the 
nan-ative  is  to  me  evinced  by  the  fact  that  all  the  hterature 
of  the  world  has  failed  to  set  forth  for  human  warning 
any  sketch  of  the  course  of  temptation  which  is  comparable 
in  insight  to  this  most  ancient  allegory.  The  effect  of  a 
prohibition  in  producing  in  man's  free  will  a  tendency  to 
disobedience ;  the  peril  of  tampering  with  temptation  and 
lingering  curiously  in  its  vicinity ;  the  promptings  of  con- 
cupiscence, reinforced  by  the  whisperings  of  doubt;  the 
genesis  of  sin,  from  the  thought  to  the  wish,  from  the  wish 
to  the  purpose,  from  the  purpose  to  the  act,  from  the  act 
to  the  repetition,  to  the  habit,  to  the  character,  to  the 
necessity,  to  the  temptation  of  others ;  the  thrilling  inten- 
sity of  reaction  in  the  sense  of  fear,  shame,  and  of  an  inno- 
cence lost  for  ever;  the  certain  and  natural  incidence  of 
retribution ;  the  beginning  of  a  new  life  of  sorrow  and 
humiliation ;  the  workings  of  deathf  ul  consequence  with  all 
the  ine\'itable  certainty  of  a  natural  law— all  this,  and  the 
&^yil\\  truth  that  death  is  the  wages  of  sin,  and  the  fruit 
of  sin,  and  that  death  is  sin,  has  been  set  forth  since  then 
by  all  the  loftiest  literature  of  the  world.  Yet  all  the 
literature  of  the  world,  even  when  it  speaks  through  the 
genius  of  a  Dante  and  a  Milton,  has  added,  and  can  add, 
nothing  essential  to  the  primeval  story  of  Genesis,  which 
it  can  but  illustrate  and  expand.  What,  then,  does  it 
show  but  our  own  ignorance  if  we  ridicule  the  very  sym- 
bols which  were  required  by  the  Understanding  as  its 
literary  form,  and  which  have  proved  so  incomparably 
vivid  and  appropriate  for  the  preservation  and  conveyance 
of  such  necessary  tiniths? 
ii.  Or  take  the  story  of  Babel.     Are  we  asked  to  believe 


244  THE   BIBLE 

literally  the   anthropomorpliic  details  with  which  it  is 
invested  ? 

Truly,  if  all  this  is  to  be  taken  literally,  we  should  be 
inclined  to  say  of  it  as  St.  Gregory  of  Nyssa  does,  that  it 
is  'lovdaUrj  ^Xvapia  Kal  naraiorrig  ('Jewish  nonsense  and 
folly  0  ;  but  if  we  take  it  as  an  ancient,  Eastern,  and  sym- 
bolic way  of  expressing  the  truth  that  God  breaks  up  into 
separate  nationalities  the  tyrannous  organisation  of  cruel 
despotisms,  it  ceases  to  be  a  childlike  myth  and  becomes 
an  indication  of  deeji  historic  insight.  To  adopt  such  a 
view  is  no  more  to  adopt  the  allegorising  method  than  is 
the  explanation  of  au}^  other  avowed  parable.  Any  East- 
ern reader  would  at  once  understand  as  an  apologue  the 
story  of  a  heaven-reaching  tower,  and  God  coming  down 
to  perplex  the  builders  by  making  them  speak  different 
languages.  Rightly  understood,  it  teaches  a  permanently 
valuable  lesson ;  but  if  it  be  understood  as  a  literal  account 
of  the  diversities  of  language,  it  is  treated  as  it  was  never 
meant  to  be  treated,  and  becomes  an  unintelligible  tale. 

Ill 

The  story  of  Balaam  is  another  theme  for  ignorant  ridi- 
cule. One  would  suppose  that  nothing  was  worth  notice 
in  that  impassioned  and  most  instructive  story  except  the 
three  verses  about  the  ass,  which  narrate  the  merest 
incident  in  it.^  To  better  instructed  readers,  those  verses 
present  no  difficulty  at  all.  They  regard  them  as  a  mere 
symbol  in  the  splendid  narrative,  which  is  rich  in  almost 
unrivalled  elements  of  moral  edification.  It  never  occurs 
to  them  to  suppose  anything  so  needless  as  that  the  ass 
really  spoke,  or  that  the  original  narrator  intended  his 

1  Num.  xxii.  28-30. 


BALAAM  245 

story  to  be  so  understood.'  Talking  animals  are  common 
in  Eastern  and  ancient  literature,  and  no  one  would  dream 
of  supposing  that  they  are  anything  more  than  a  part  of 
the  literary  form.  The  general  story  about  this  great 
Mesopotamian  sorcerer  has  every  appearance  of  being  a 
genuine  and  straightforward  narrative  in  its  main  outlines, 
but  set  forth  in  the  language  of  a  warm  imagination.  It 
would  not  have  been  easy  for  the  narrator  in  that  early 
pliase  of  the  human  intellect  to  state  in  abstract  terms  the 
truth  that  those  who  will  persist  in  blinding  and  sophisti- 
cating then*  own  consciences  by  yielding  to  the  impulse  of 
a  besetting  sin  must  come,  sooner  or  later,  to  a  narrow 
path  where  it  is  not  possible  for  them  to  turn  aside :  yet 
that,  even  at  that  crisis,  the  self-blinded  soul  may  fail  to 
see  the  confronting  wrath  of  God,  though  it  is  manifest 
to  all  around,  and  though  even  dumb  animals  may  show 
themselves  conscious  of  the  peril  involved  in  an  evil  course. 
But  what  comes  so  tamely  when  it  is  expressed  in  gene- 
ralities becomes  vivid  and  forcible  when  it  is  set  forth  by 
living  and  familiar  symbols.  Those  symbols  would  not 
have  seemed  \nilgar  or  ludicrous  to  an  Eastern  listener, 
and  his  realisation  of  their  force  would  have  better  enabled 
him  to  understand  the  lesson,  that 

In  outlines  dim  and  vast, 

Their  fearful  shadows  cast 
The  giant  forms  of  empires  on  their  way 

To  ruin ;  one  by  one 

They  tower  and  they  are  gone, 
Yet  in  the  Prophet's  soul  the  dreams  of  avarice  stay.^ 

•  It  is  childish  to  quote  the  incidental  allusion  in  2  Pet.  ii.  16  as 
though  it  were  decisive  as  to  the  literal  meaning  of  the  passage. 

2  Tlio  moral  significance  of  the  narrative  was  dealt  with  more  fully 
by  the  writer  many  years  ago  in  the  Expositor,  first  series,  i.  366-379. 


246  THE  BIBLE 


IV 

Again,  the  lovers  of  Scripture  are  upbraided  with  the 
credulity  which  can  possibly  accept  stupendous  and  dis- 
proportionate impossibilities. 

If  we  take  literally  the  tenth  chapter  of  Joshua,  it  nar- 
rates a  miracle  so  immense  as  to  throw  every  other  miracle 
into  the  shade.  And  the  most  amazing  hypotheses  have 
been  deduced  from  it.  I  have  for  instance  heard  it  delibe- 
rately suggested  that  to  this  suspension  of  the  laws  of  the 
universe  at  the  word  of  Joshua  was  due  the  upheaval  of 
vast  mountain-chains  on  the  earth's  sui'face ! 

Has  it  never  occurred  to  such  theorists  how  totally  un- 
like the  economy  of  God's  dealings  would  be  so  immea- 
surable an  interference  for  so  trivial  an  end?  All  the 
laws  of  the  planetary  system  intercepted  and  suspended 
in  order  to  complete  the  petty  victory  of  one  small  Semitic 
tribe  over  a  few  insignificant  sheykhs!  And  this  most 
transcendent  display  of  the  supernatural  not  once  alluded 
to  again  in  the  whole  history  of  the  Chosen  People ! 

The  Israelites  and  Joshua  believed,  and  had  full  right 
to  believe,  that  God  was  with  them,  and  to  acknowledge 
His  aid  in  the  courage  which  enabled  them  to  defeat  their 
enemies.  Further  than  this,  it  is  doubtful  whether  there 
was  the  slightest  intention  to  imply  a  miracle  on  the  part 
of  the  poet  to  whom  the  quotation  in  the  narrative  is 
referred.  Had  the  same  poet  been  describing  in  Oriental 
method  the  battle  of  Mortimer's  Cross,  which  induced 
Edward  IV.  to  take  as  his  cognisance  '  the  rose  in  the  sun,' 
he  might  have  used  similar  expressions.  To  a  Jew  the 
providential  was  indistinguishable  from  the  mu-aculous. 

The  battle  of  Gibeon  was  practically  won.     The  five 


THE   SUN  'SILENT'  247 

petty  emirs  had  been  routed  and  were  flying  headlong  np 
the  pass  to  Beth-horon  the  upper,  and  down  the  steep 
descent  to  Beth-lioron  the  nether.  Their  total  defeat  had 
been  precipitated  by  a  storm  of  hail  which  burst  upon 
them.  There  were  two  records  of  the  battle  which  the 
Children  of  Israel  regarded  as  so  glorious  and  decisive. 
One  was  in  prose,  one  in  verse.  The  latter  seems  to  have 
been  a  fine  poem,  enshrined  among  the  national  paeans  of 
the  Book  of  Jasher.  The  date  of  this  poem  is  entirely 
unknown  to  us.  It  may  have  been  written  no  earlier  than 
the  days  of  David.^  The  present  form  of  the  narrative  in 
which  it  is  embodied  cannot  be  proved  to  be  more  ancient 
than  many  centuries  after  the  event. 

In  the  poem,  Joshua  was  represented  as  standing  on  the 
heights  of  Beth-horon,  uplifting  his  victorious  spear,  and 
uttering  the  fine  poetic  apostrophe : 

Sun,  stand  thou  still  2  upon  Gibeon  ! 

And  thou,  Moon,  in  the  valley  of  Ajalon  ! 

Till  the  nation  have  avenged  themselves  upon  their  enemies ; 

which  in  plain  prose  was  equivalent  to  a  prayer  that  ere 
sunset  the  rout  and  massacre  might  be  complete.  The 
daylight  lasted  long  enough  for  the  purpose  of  decisive 
triumph.  This  was  represented  in  the  antistrophe  of  the 
ode  by  the  words, 

And  the  Sun  stood  still ' 
And  the  Moon  stayed 
Till  the  nation  had  avenged  themselves  upon  their  enemies. 

1  See  2  Sam.  i.  18. 

2  DH.  Lit.  'bo  silent.'  The  appeal  is  exactly  analogous  to  that 
of  Agamemnon  in  the  Jliad,  ii.  412  (compare  xvii.  232  ;  Od.  xxii.  241). 

3  It  is  as  needless  to  take  it  literally  as  to  lake  literally  'the  stars 
in  their  courses  fouglit  a^iiiiist  Sisera; '  or  'the  hills  melted  like  wax 
at  the  presence  of  the  Lord ; '  or  Ps.  xviii.  8,  16. 


248  THE  BIBLE 

To  this  poetic  quotation  the  prose  chronicler  adds  his  com- 
ment :  '  So  the  sun  stood  still  in  the  midst  of  heaven,  and 
hasted  not  to  go  down  about  a  whole  day.'  It  is  mainly 
from  this  comment  that  the  notion  has  been  derived  of  a 
prodigy  which  would  utterly  throw  into  the  shade  the 
wildest  dreams  of  Hindoo  or  Mahometan  fancy.^  We  are 
to  suppose  on  such  evidence  that  the  laws  of  the  whole 
solar  sj^stem  were  reversed,  with  all  the  millions  of  subor- 
dinate miracles  which  such  an  intervention  would  have 
rendered  necessary,  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  enable 
Joshua  to  destroy  some  Palestinian  tribes,  whose  defeat, 
in  accordance  with  the  entire  unbroken  economy  of  God's 
dealing,  could  have  been  accomplished  in  such  infinitely 
simpler  ways ! 

That  the  words  are  founded  on  the  old  astronomic  error 
which  supposed  that  the  world  is  stationary  and  that  the 
sun  moves  round  it,  is  admitted  by  everybody.  The  most 
stolid  of  hteralists  must  therefore  tamper  with  the  words, 
and  admit  that  neither  the  sun  nor  the  moon  really  stood 
still;  but  that  either  (1)  the  earth  ceased  to  rotate  on  its 
axis,  and  that  the  millionf  old  crash  and  catastrophe  which 
would  have  resulted  from  such  a  staying  of  the  wheel  of 
being  was  prevented  by  a  millionfold  and  most  stupen- 
dous interference  with  natural  laws ;  or  (2)  that  there  was 
a  parhelion,  or  some  form  of  refraction  and  semblance; 
or  some  other  hypothesis  almost  too  absurd  to  have  oc- 
curred to  any  human  mind  not  hopelessly  distorted  by  a 
false  theory.2 

^  The  subsequent  words  (Josh.  x.  14,  'And  there  was  no  day  like 
that,'  &e.)  are  quite  consistent  with  the  feeling  of  intense  thanksgiv- 
ing for  a  day  of  decisive  success. 

2  Such  as  tliat  the  earth's  orbit  was  affected  by  a  shower  of  me- 
teorites !  or  that  lightning  followed  the  hail ;  or  that  Joshua  and  the 


THE   SUN  'SILENT'  249 

But  if  such  manipulations  of  the  narrative  be  admissible, 
it  is  clear  that  no  basis  is  left  for  any  belief  in  the  miracle 
in  the  form  in  which  it  is  narrated.  We  are  sure  that  by 
God's  blessing  Israel  defeated  five  sheykhs  in  a  long  day's 
battle.  The  amount  of  e\ddence  on  which  we  are  asked 
to  accept  the  prodigy  involved  by  an  unimaginative  inter- 
pretation of  the  poem  is  nil.  An  anonymous  record  in 
some  fragmentary  Jewish  annals ;  the  isolated  quotation 
from  a  battle-ode  in  a  lost  book  of  poems  of  uncertain  date 
—can  any  reasonable  man  regard  this  as  sufficient  evidence 
for  the  most  overwhehningly  portentous  event  ever  heard 
of  in  the  annals  of  the  world  ? 

'  The  gi-ound  of  credit,'  said  Hooker,  '  is  the  credibility 
of  things  credited;  and  things  are  made  credible  either 
by  the  known  conditions  and  quality  of  the  utterer,  or  by 
the  manifest  likelihood  of  truth  which  they  have  in  them- 
selves.' ^  In  this  instance,  in  addition  to  the  fact  that  we 
know  nothing  of  the  poem  quoted,  and  that  the  event 
Jiteralhj  taken  combines  in  itself  every  element  of  unlikeli- 
hood, we  have  the  further  consideration  that  the  original 
lyrist  in  all  probability  did  not  dream  that  any  reader 
would  take  literally  wliat  he  sang  poetically. 

But  it  may  be  said  the  annalist  understood  the  poem 
literally  ?  Possibly  he  did ;  but  we  cannot  be  sure.  The 
prose  sentence  in  verse  13  may  imply  nothing  more  than 
that  the  Masoretic  or  other  editor— so  far  from  being  the 
stupidus  ilU  Masoreticus  of  one  critic— had  caught  some- 
thiug    of    the    magnificently    imaginative    spirit    which 

Israelites  were  so  absorbed  in  massacre  that  they  thought  one  day 
was  two  days  !  This  is  the  device  of  Keil,  with  whom  that  archaic 
style  of  exegesis  may  be  said  to  have  finally  expired,  at  any  rate  in 
learned  Germany. 

1  Hooker,  EccL  Pol.  bk.  ii.  ch.  iv.  p.  1. 


250  THE   BIBLE 

breathed  tlirougli  the  grand  apostrophe  placed  by  the 
poet  in  the  mouth  of  the  Hebrew  leader.  He  may  not 
have  intended  to  imply  that  there  was  any  fm-ther  miracle 
than  the  superintending  providence  of  the  God  of  Battles.^ 
Even  if  he  did,  the  laws  of  literary  criticism  are  sufficient 
to  show  us  that  we  should  not  be  bound  by  so  servile  a 
letter- worship.  At  any  rate,  while  so  many  uncertainties 
smTound  every  element  of  the  narrative,  it  must  be  clear 
that  the  view  taken  is  one  with  which  essential  religion 
can  have  no  concern.  He  who  chooses  may  believe  that 
the  most  fundamental  laws  of  the  universe  were  arrested 
to  enable  Joshua  to  slaughter  a  few  more  hundred  fugi- 
tives ;  and  he  who  chooses  may  believe  that  nothing  of  the 
kind  even  entered  into  the  mind  of  the  narrator. 

Let  each  man  be  fully  persuaded  in  his  own  mind.  No 
one  is  bound  by  the  assertions  of  any  one  else  on  this  sub- 
ject. 

V 

It  win  be  unnecessary  to  refer  to  more  than  one  other 
narrative  in  proof  that  each  question  which  arises  must 
be  considered  on  its  own  merits,  and  with  reference  to  its 
own  evidence  and  meaning. 

The  story  of  Jonah  and  the  whale  is  perhaps  the  most 
frequent  object  of  jeering  allusion  by  those  who  hold  up 
the  Biljle  to  ridicule,  and  of  untenable  defence  by  those 
who  insist  on  false  views  of  Biblical  interpretation. 

1  In  Eeclus.  xlvi.  4  we  read,  'Did  not  the  sun  go  back  by  his  means ' 
(lit.  'in  his  hand') ;  but  this  is  a  blunder  for  'stand  still/  and  some 
consider  the  verse  an  interpolation  (compare  Eeclus.  xlviii.  23). 
Josephus,  on  the  other  hand  {Antt.  V.  i.  17),  only  says,  'Moreover  it 
happened  that  the  day  was  lengthened'— a  very  mild  allusion  to  an 
event  which,  if  understood  literally,  was  the  most  tremendous  pro- 
digy which  had  ever  occurred  in  all  human  history  ! 


THE   BOOK   OF  JONAH  251 

The  Book  of  Jonah  is  full  of  Divine  and  deeply  needed 
wisdom.  Derided  by  the  sceptic  now,  as  it  was  by  the 
pagan  in  old  days,  a  source  of  perplexity  to  many,  of  late 
and  wholly  uncertain  date,  of  warmly  disputed  interpre- 
tation, it  yet  stands  very  high  in  moral  insight  and  eleva- 
tion, and  towers  above  whole  masses  of  Jewish  literature 
in  the  breadth  of  its  comprehensive  tolerance. 

The  historic  Jonah,  the  son  of  Amittai,  was  born  at 
Gath-Hepher,  a  village  of  Zebulon.  He  flourislied  about 
eight  centuries  before  Christ  in  the  prosperous  days  of 
Jeroboam  II.  A  Jewish  legend  identified  him  "\Wth  the 
son  of  the  widow  of  Sarepta  whom  Elijah  restored  to  life, 
and  with  the  youth  whom  Elisha  sent  to  anoint  Jehu  King 
of  Israel.  We  know  nothing  farther  about  him  from  the 
historic  books,  nor  is  it  possible  to  tell  whether  this 
anonymous  narrative  of  uncertain  date  was  intended  to 
represent  fact  or  psychological  fiction.^  Dr.  Wright,  in 
his  '  Biblical  Essays '  (pp.  34-98),  points  out  many  striking 
reasons  for  regarding  it  as  an  allegory  of  the  fate  of  Israel 
founded  on  descriptions  given  in  the  Hebrew  Prophets. 
The  story  briefly  is  that  God  bade  Jonah  leave  his  home 
in  Israel  and  cry  against  Nineveh.  He  felt  the  task  too 
terrible,  and  flpng  to  Joppa  embarked  on  a  ship  going  to 
Tarshish.  Summoned  eastward  to  the  capital  of  Assyria, 
he  tried  to  escape  along  the  whole  Mediterranean  to  the 
farthest  limit  of  Western  civilisation,  to  hide  himself,  if 
possible,  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord.-  He  soon  found 
that  man  cannot  escape  from  God.  '  The  Lord  sent  out 
a  great  wind  upon  the  sea,'  and  the  Tartessian  ship  was 

1  Some  Hebrew  critics,  judfjjing  from  the  lanpfuage  and  style  and 
tone  of  tlionplit,  assign  the  book  to  a  century  later  than  the  return 
from  the  exile  — about  B.C.  400. 

2  Jonah  means  '  dove '  (compare  Ps.  Iv.  6-8). 


252  THE  BIBLE 

nearly  swamped.  The  sailors  were  terrified,  but  Jonah 
slept,  as  for  a  time  his  conscience  also  slept.  The  heathen 
mariners  awake  him  and  bid  him  call  on  his  God ;  but  the 
storm  continues,  and  they  become  convinced  that  it  has 
been  sent  because  they  have  some  guilty  man  on  board. 
They  cast  lots  to  find  the  criminal ;  the  lot  falls  on  Jonah. 
He  tells  them  who  he  is,  and  the  heathen  reprove  the 
Hebrew.  For  a  time  they  honestly  endeavour  to  save  him, 
but  it  is  impossible.  They  rowed  hard— they  'dug  the 
sea'— but  they  could  not  reach  the  land.  Then,  with  a 
prayer  for  mercy  and  pardon,  they  cast  him  overboard ; 
the  sea  grows  calm ;  they  thank  God  and  offer  a  sacrifice. 
Two  verses  exhaust  all  that  Scripture  has  to  tell  us 
about  the  method  of  his  deliverance.^  'The  Lord  had 
prepared  a  great  fish  to  swallow  up  Jonah.  And  Jonah 
was  in  the  belly  of  the  fish  three  days  and  three  nights. 
.  .  .  And  the  Lord  spake  unto  the  fish,  and  it  vomited 
out  Jonah  upon  the  dry  land.'  Between  these  two  verses 
comes  the  prayer  which  Jonah  is  supposed  to  have  offered 
in  the  fish's  belly.  It  consists  of  a  cento  of  phrases  from 
the  Psalms,  It  is  moreover  but  little  appropriate  to  the 
supposed  situation,  for  so  far  from  being  a  prmjer  for 
deliverance  from  a  position  infinitely  loathsome,  it  is  a 
thmiksgiving  for  deliverance ;  and  it  is  a  singular  cu'cum- 
stanee  that  this  Prophet  of  the  northern  kingdom  twice 

^  It  is  remarkable  that  in  2  Kings  xiv.  25  not  an  allusion  is  made 
to  any  mission  or  adventui'e  of  the  historic  Jonah ;  nor  is  there  the 
faintest  trace  of  his  mission  or  its  result  amid  the  masses  of  Assyrian 
inscriptions.  'Some  devout  but  imaginative  interpreters,'  says  Pro- 
fessor Elmslie,  'have  endeavoured  to  reduce  the  difficulty  of  the 
miraculous  by  quoting  parallel  wonders  from  apocryphal  bits  of 
natural  history ;  but  from  beginning  to  end  the  narrative  is  one  con- 
tinuous chain  of  surprises,  providences,  and  marvels,  of  a  very  un- 
usual description'  {Book  by  Book,  p.  288). 


THE  GREAT  FISH  253 

alludes  to  the  Temple  of  Jerusalem.'  And  surely  it  is  but 
reasonable  to  ask  whether  we  could  ever  have  been  sup- 
posed to  understand  literally,  and  not  as  a  symbol  or  di- 
dactic fiction,  *  a  narrative  in  which  a  man  is  represented 
as  composing  a  poetical  prayer,  surrounded  with  water, 
his  head  bound  with  seaweed,  and  drifting  with  marine 
currents,  while  inside  a  monster  of  the  sea,'  ^  '  It  is  very 
significant,'  says  Dr.  Wright,  '  that  almost  every  sentence 
of  the  Song  of  Jonah  is  either  directly  borrowed  from,  or 
can  be  illustrated  by  the  songs  anticipative  of  the  Capti- 
vity, or  sung  during  the  dark  days  of  Israel's  exile ; '  and 
the  only  sin  alluded  to  (ver.  8)  is  not  the  grave  sin  of  faith- 
less disobedience  of  which  Jonah  had  been  guilty,  but  the 
sin  of  idolatry,  of  which  he  was  entu-ely  innocent.^ 

Now  it  is  on  the  single  portent  of  the  '  great  fish '  that 
the  attention  of  most  readers  has  been  concentrated. 
Those  who  accepted  it  as  a  prodigy  have  anathematised 
all  Avho  presumed  to  regard  it  as  a  moral  figure,  and  called 
them  wicked  unbelievers.  Those  who  have  intei-preted  it 
as  a  symbol  have  derided  all  who  accepted  it  as  a  miracle, 
and  called  them  ignorant  blunderers.  It  woidd  have  been 
better  if  both  sets  of  critics  had  contented  themselves  with 
learning  from  this  remarkable  httle  story  lessons  of  the 
love  of  God  towards  man,  and  of  the  tolerance  due  from 
men  to  one  another.  The  last  purpose  of  the  Book  of 
Jonah  was  that  all  the  most  trivial  and  superficial  readers 
shoidd  '  pore  over  the  whale,  and  forget  God.' 

It  ought  not,  however,  to  be  systematically  overlooked 
that,  regarded  as  an  allegory,  nothing  ivas  more  natural  than 
this  metaphor  of  being  swallowed  alive  by  a  monster;  and  that, 
in  one  form  or  another,  it  is  applied  to  Israel  several  times  in 

1  Jon.  ii.  4,  7.  2   fp/mi  is  the  Bible  f  p.  84  (Ladd). 

3  Biblical  £ssays,  p,  61, 


254  THE   BIBLE 

(he  Prophets,  who  also  image  the  enemies  of  Israel  as  a  levi- 
athan of  the  sea} 

In  spite  of  this  great  rescue,  Jonah  is  represented  to  us 
in  the  seliish  and  sinful  littleness  of  his  character.  He 
goes  indeed  to  Nineveh,  a  city  which  is  described  as  being 
sixty  miles  in  circumference.  He  passes  through  the  city 
a  day's  journey,  delivering  ever  his  monotonous  message 
of  five  Hebrew  words,  'Yet  forty  days,  Nineveh  shall  be 
overthrown.'  The  king,  the  nobles,  the  whole  city  hear 
the  message,  and  are  bidden  by  royal  edict  to  fast,  pray, 
and  repent.  The  very  animals  are  included  in  the  general 
humiliation.  This  one  Lent  of  penitence  saves  600,000 
souls.  '  God  repented  of  the  evil  which  He  had  said  that 
He  would  do  unto  them ;  and  He  did  it  not.'  ^ 

What  man  of  the  most  ordinary  sensibility  would  not  have 
rejoiced  at  the  success,  so  unparalleled,  of  a  sermon  so  simple  ? 

Who  with  repentance  is  not  satisfied 
Is  not  of  heaven,  or  earth  ! 

But  the  deliverance  of  Nineveh  '  displeased  Jonah  exceed- 
ingly ' !  He  wishes  himself  dead  because  God  does  not 
burn  up  Nineveh  as  He  burned  up  Sodom.  He  had 
thanked  God  for  liis  own  preservation,  but  he  is  indignant 
and  miserable  that  these  600,000,  with  the  180,000  children 
'  and  also  much  cattle,'  should  be  spared ! 

1  See  Is.  xxvii.  1,  Ps.  Ixxiv.  13,  Hos.  vi.  1,  2,  and  especially  Jer. 
1.  17 ;  li.  SI,  44.  '  Nebuchadrezzar  hath  devoured  me,  he  hath  crushed 
me,  he  hath  made  me  an  empty  vessel,  he  hath  siraUoivcd  me  vp  liJcc 
the  sea  monster,  he  hath  filled  his  belly  with  my  delicates,  he  hath  cast 
me  out'  (Wright,  I.e.  p.  53). 

8  For  similar  instances  of  what  is  technically  called  anthropopathy 
—i.e.  the  description  of  God's  nature  under  the  analogy  presented  by 
human  passions— see  1  Kings  xxi.  21)  f.,  Jer.,  xviii.  8  f.,  Ezek.  xxxiii. 
7-16,  Jer.  xxvi.  18, 19. 


JONAH  255 

Yet  God  is  tenderly  compassionate  to  this  hard  and 
infinitely  pitiless  Pharisee  !  In  answer  to  his  bitter  com- 
plaint against  God,  his  peevish  and  petulant  prayer  for 
death,  his  justification  of  his  first  flight  on  the  gi'ound  that 
he  knew  God  to  be  *  gracious  and  merciful,  slow  to  anger, 
and  of  great  kindness, '  God  only  says  to  him,  by  the  voice 
of  conscience,  '  Doest  thou  well  to  be  angry  ? ' 

But  Jonah,  still  retaining  his  frightful  hope,  went  sul- 
lenly outside  the  city  and  made  himself  a  booth,  and  sat 
under  it,  still  desiring  that  the  forgiven  city,  which  glit- 
tered hatefully  before  his  eyes,  might  be  calcined  or  en- 
gulfed. 'Better  the  whole  city  perish  than  that  /  be 
proved  in  the  wrong ! '  Jesus  wept  over  lost  Jerusalem ; 
Jonah  is  '  very  angry '  because  of  Nineveh  reprieved. 

A  few  words  end  the  story.  God  deals  tenderly  even 
with  this  petty  and  loveless  nature.  The  sun  was  hot; 
God  causes  a  quick-growing  palm-christ  to  overshadow 
the  Prophet  with  its  broad  green  leaves.  Jonah  was  ex- 
ceedingly glad.^  Next  morning  God  prepares  a  worm 
which  gnaws  at  the  plant's  root,  and  it  withers;  and  as 
the  simoon  breathes  its  hot  flames,  and  the  sun  beats  on 
the  fretful  egotist,  he  once  more  wishes  himself  dead. 
Again  the  gentle  question :  *  Doest  thou  well  to  be  angry 
for  the  palm-christ  ? '  Again  the  petulant  answer :  *  I  do 
well  to  be  angry,  even  unto  death.'  Poor  splenetic  nature, 
wath  its  fierce  rehgionism  and  its  personal  pique ;  equally 
miserable  over  the  saved  city  and  the  withered  plant ;  little 
in  its  disappointments,  and  base  in  its  aspirations !  One 
may  well  hope  that  this  is  instructive  fiction.     We  may 

1  1  Kings  xiv.  25.  Ewakl,  Hitzig,  and  others  think  that  the  ancient 
fragment  of  prophecy  in  Is.  xv.,  xvi.,  was  a  prophecy  by  the  historic 
Jonah.  (See  Is.  xvi.  13,  where  'since  that  time'  sho\ild  be  rendered 
'in  time  past.') 


256  THE   BIBLE 

well  liope  that  the  historic  Jonah,  whose  name  was  utilised 
for  the  pui'poses  of  this  Haggadah,  was  a  nobler  character 
than  this !  ^ 

Then  the  book  ends  with  words  of  noblest  significance : 
'  Thou  hast  had  pity  on  the  palm-chrisf,  for  the  tvhich  thou 
hast  not  laVoured,  neither  madest  it  grow  ;  which  came  up  in 
a  night,  and  perished  in  a  night :  and  should  not  I  have  pity 
on  Nineveh,  that  great  city  ;  ivherein  are  more  than  sixscore 
thousand  persons  that  cannot  discern  between  their  right  hand 
and  their  left  hand ;  and  also  much  cattle  f '  In  largo- 
heartedness,  in  spirituality,  in  moral  insight,  the  book  is 
not  only  the  noblest  of  its  class,  but  in  some  respects 
pre-eminent  in  Jewish  literatm-e. 

The  raging  spirit  of  national  and  religious  hatred  which 
finds  such  manifold  expression  in  the  later  Jewish  writings 
would  have  met  with  a  wholesome  corrective  if  the  Jews 
had  attained  to  the  nobler  standpoint  of  this  little  book. 
The  lesson  of  the  Book  of  Jonah  is  the  lesson  of  the  no- 
blest passage  in  the  Book  of  Wisdom.  O  God,  '  the  whole 
world  before  Thee  is  as  a  drop  of  the  morning  dew.  But 
Thou  hast  mercy  upon  all.  For  Thou  lovest  all  the  things 
that  are,  and  abhorrest  nothing  that  Thou  hast  made. 
But  Thou  spare  stall,  for  they  are  Thine,  0  Lord,  Thou 
lover  of  souls ! ' 

To  the  supernatui-al  incidents,  which  only  belong  to  the 
allegorical  form  of  the  story,  the  author  attached  no 
importance ;  they  were  but  the  machinery  of  the  vehicle  to 
which  he  entrusted  his  lofty  and  humane  conceptions.  To 
a  Hebrew  of  that  age  the  notion  of  the  three  days  in  the 
fish's  beUy  presented  nothing  so  extravagant  as  to  prevent 
him  from  using  that  form  of  incident  to  point  a  moral. 
Even  the  less  imaginative  Greeks  had  their  stories  of  sea 

1  Compare  Lam.  iv.  20. 


JONAH  257 

monsters  which  destroyed,  and  dolphins  which  saved,  hu- 
man life ;  and  in  the  hagiography  we  have  the  legend  of  St. 
Margaret  swallowed  by  a  dragon,  which  bursts  asunder,  and 
enables  her  to  come  forth  uninjured  when  she  makes  the 
sign  of  the  cross.  Such  stories  are  only  intended  to  be  the 
embodiment  of  an  idea.  The  particular  form  of  incident 
was  (as  we  have  seen)  probably  suggested  by  the  Hebrew 
lyrics,  which  symbolised  afiliction  by  the  picture  of  being 
swallowed  up  by  the  devouring  sea,  or  its  fierce  leviathans, 
and  visiting  '  the  monstrous  bottoms  of  the  world.' 

But  some  readers  will  already  have  asked  why  I  have 
not  referred  to  the  argument  which  they  regard  as  a  proof 
of  the  historicity  of  the  narrative— namely,  the  allusions 
made  to  it  by  our  Lord.  These  allusions  occurred  in  His 
refusal  to  show  '  a  sign '  to  the  jeering  Pharisees,  when  He 
said  that  no  sign  should  be  given  them  but  '  the  sign  of 
the  Prophet  Jonah ; '  and  told  them  that  the  repentant  Nine- 
vites  shoiild  rise  in  judgment  against  that  generation  and 
should  condemn  it  (Matt.  xii.  40,  41,  x\d.  4 ;  Luke  xi.  30, 32). 

Now  in  these  passages— which  refer  to  the  same  occasion 
—the  allusion  to  Jonah  being  '  three  days  and  three  nights 
in  the  whale's  belly '  occurs  in  Matt.  xii.  40  alone,  and  not 
in  the  parallel  passage  of  St.  Luke.  The  reference  more- 
over involves  several  serious  difficulties,  which  make  it 
doubtful  whether  it  may  not  represent  a  comment  or 
marginal  note  by  the  Evangelist,  or  of  some  other  Chris- 
tian teacher.  For  not  even  by  the  Jewish  mode  of  reckon- 
ing was  our  Lord  three  days  and  three  nights  in  the  heart 
of  the  earth,  but  only  two  nights  and  one  day.  This  is 
nothing  but  a  slight  peculiarity  of  language.  Had  it  stood 
alone  it  might  have  passed  without  notice  ;  but  when  taken 
in  connection  with  St.  Luke's  omission  of  so  remarkable  a 
reference,  it  has  led  many  critics— and  among  them  men 
17 


258  THE  BIBLE 

so  eminent  as  Ewald,  De  Wette,  Bleek,  and  Neander— to 
suppose  some  misapprehension  on  the  part  of  the  disciples. 
For  the  sign  to  which  our  Lord  appeals,  in  both  Evange- 
lists, as  is  shown  by  the  entire  context,  is  not  the  miracle 
of  the  fish,  but  the  repentance  of  the  Nineiites  at  the  Pro- 
phets preaching.  But  even  if  our  Lord  did  allude  to  '  the 
whale,'  the  question  might  still  be  fairly  asked,  whether 
this  incidental  allusion  to  the  allegoric  story  requires  a 
literal  acceptance  of  the  actual /ac^. 

Certainly  the  mere  reference  to  a  story  is  no  proof  of 
any  belief  that  the  story  is  literal  history.  St.  Paul  makes 
didactic  use  of  Rabbinic  legends  and  Rabbinic  reasoning : 
no  one  supposes  that  he  must  necessarily  be  taken  au  pied 
de  la  lettre}  St.  Jude,  and  the  author  of  St.  Peter,  allude 
to  strange  Jewish  myths,  as  to  the  Fall  of  the  Angels  and 
the  dispute  between  Michael  and  the  devil  about  the  body 
of  Moses :  is  any  one  expected  on  that  account  to  accept 
those  wild  legends  as  actual  facts  ?  In  2  Peter  we  find  the 
word  Taprapcjaag,  '  hurling  to  Tartartis '  (ii.  4) ;  yet  no 
human  being  supposes  that  the  author  meant  thereby  to 
imply  the  truth  of  the  Greek  eschatology.  St.  Jude  makes 
an  undoubted  quotation  from  the  spurious  and  fantastic 
Book  of  Enoch ;  are  we  therefore  compelled  to  maintain 
that  the  Book  of  Enoch  is  genuine  and  true  ?  ^ 

1  Dr.  otto  Zockler  candidly  admits  that  the  literal  truth  of  the  story 
cannot  he  grounded  on  Matt.  xii.  39  {Handbucli,  p.  149) ;  so,  too,  Dean 
Plumptre,  ad  loc.  On  the  whole  book  see  Kalisch,  Bible  Studies; 
Noldeke,  Alt-test.  Litteratnr;  Kleinert  in  Lange's  Bibelwerk;  Professor 
Cheyne,  Jonah,  a  Study  in  Jewish  Folklore,  &e. 

2  The  late  Archbishop  Benson  askea  the  pertinent  question,  'May 
not  the  Holy  Spirit  make  use  of  myth  and  legend  f  Are  the  parables 
of  Christ  less  fraught  with  eternal  instruction  because  they  are  ima- 
ginary stories  ?  Any  Haggadah  may  be  most  di-sanely  true  to  fact, 
though  (like  the  Pilgrim's  Progress)  it  adopts  the  vehicle  of  fiction. 


LEGENDS  AND  MYTHS  259 

Was  not  Goethe  right  when  he  said,  'Much  debating 
goes  on  about  the  good  and  the  harm  done  by  free  circu- 
lation of  the  Bible.  To  me  this  is  clear :  it  will  do  harm, 
as  it  has  done,  if  used  dogmatically  and  fancifully;  and 
do  good,  as  it  has  done,  if  used  didactically  and  feelingly '  ? 
And  '  I  am  convinced  that  the  Bible  always  becomes  more 
beautiful  the  better  it  is  understood,  i.e.  the  better  we  see 
that  every  word  has  a  specifically  dii*ect  bearing  on  the 
spiritual  life  of  the  time  in  which  it  was  written.' 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

SUPREMACY   OF   THE   BIBLE. 

'  Let  Thy  Scriptures  be  my  pure  delight ;  let  me  not  be  deceived  in 
them,  neither  let  me  deceive  by  them.'— Augustine,  Confessions,  ii.  2. 

'A  worn-out  Dogma  died ;  around  its  bed 
Its  votaries  wept  as  if  all  truth  were  dead. 
But  heaven-born  Truth  is  an  immortal  thing ; 
Hark  how  its  lieges  give  it  welcoming : 
"  The  King  is  dead— long  live  the  King !  " ' 

John  Hooker. 

/  I      'It  is  religion  that  has  formed  the  Bible,  not  the  Bible  that  has 
i formed  religion.'— R.  D.  C.  Levin. 

*  For  my  part  I  am  at  an  utter  loss  to  conceive  of  a  revelation  from 
heaven  that  must  not  be  trusted  alone.'— Robert  Hall. 

(We  have  seen  in  the  preceding  pages  how  deep  are  the 
wounds  with  which  the  Bible  has  been  wounded  in  the 
i  house  of  its  friends;  how  grossly  it  has  been  misrepre- 
sented ;  by  what  foolish  methods  it  has  been  interpreted ; 
what  crimes  it  has  been  adduced  to  sanction;  to  what 
deadly  uses  it  has  been  applied ;  how  complete  has  been 
the  failure  to  catch  the  true  meaning  and  spirit  alike  of 
separate  passages  and  even  of  entire  books  of  which  it 
is  composed.  Men  have  misused  Scripture  just  as  they 
misuse  light  or  food.     And  yet  the  Holy  Scriptures  con- 

260 


GRANDEUR  OF  SCRIPTURE  261 

tinue  to  be— and  even  increasingly  to  be— the  Supreme 
Biljle  of  Humanity.  There  could  be  no  more  decisive 
proof  of  the  unique  transcendence  of  Holy  Writ,  and  its 
essential  message  to  mankind,  than  the  fact  that  it  has 
not  only  triumphed  with  ease  over  the  assaults  of  its 
enemies,  but  has  also  continued  to  command  the  reverence, 
to  guide  the  thoughts,  to  educate  the  souls,  to  kindle  the 
moral  aspirations  of  men  through  aU  the  world.  Were 
Ave  to  collect  the  impassioned  eulogies  which  have  been 
pronounced  upon  it  by  the  saints  and  theologians  of  every 
age  we  should  require  a  volume,  and  he  must  be  indeed  a 
cynic  who  could  declare  that  testimonies  so  numerous  and 
so  fervent  are  due  only  to  insincerity  or  custom.  Yet  if 
such  expressions  of  gratitude  and  even  of  ecstasy  be  sus- 
pected, how  can  we  possibly  explain  the  fact  that  the  most 
advanced  critics— that  literary  men  outside  the  sphere  of 
Church  influence— that  men  who  would  be  denounced  as 
heretics— nay,  even  that  avowed  sceptics,  who  have  ap- 
proached the  Bible  without  a  single  trammel  of  doctrine 
or  tradition— have  yet  spoken  of  it  in  terms  of  astonish- 
ment and  admiration  no  less  glowing  than  those  which 
have  been  used  by  preachers  and  divines  ? 

I  will  coDect  a  few  of  these  estimates  of  Scripture  formed 
by  men  of  independent  minds  and  of  the  highest  ability, 
and  by  men  who  have  approached  the  Bible  solely  from 
its  literary  and  humanitarian  side.  Their  evidence  wiU 
show  that  the  ignorant  contempt  with  which  the  Bible  is 
often  disparaged  only  proves  the  incapacity  of  its  assailants 
t  o  grasp  its  real  significance.  It  is  a  literature  which  no 
age  or  nation  can  equal  or  supersede,  'though  every  li- 
brary in  the  world  had  remained  unravaged,  and  every 
teacher's  truest  words  had  been  written  down.'  'What 
jiroblems  do  these  books  leave  unexamined  ?  what  depths 


ir 


262  THE  BIBLE 

unf athomed ?  what  height  unsealed?  what  consolation 
unadministered  ?  what  conscience  unreproved  ?  what  heart 
untouched?'  How  absurd  it  must  be  to  scoff  at  a  book 
which,  through  all  the  long  centui'ies,  thousands  of  great 
men  have  reverenced  in  proportion  to  their  greatness;  a 
book  for  which,  in  age  after  age,  warriors  have  fought, 
philosophers  laboured,  and  martyrs  bled!  The  Lord 
Christ  Himself  did  not  disdain  to  quote  from  the  Old 
Testament.  Its  literary  splendour  was  acknowledged 
even  by  heathen  critics  like  Longinus,  who  referred  to 
the  sublimity  of  Genesis  and  the  impassioned  force  of  St. 
Paul.  It  exercised  the  toil  of  Origen  and  Jerome ;  it  fired 
the  eloquence  of  Gregory  and  Chi-ysostom;  it  moulded 
the  thoughts  of  Athanasius  and  Augustine ;  the  '  Summa 
TheologiaB '  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  was  but  a  meditation 
upon  its  theology,  and  the  '  Imitatio  Christi '  of  St.  Thomas 
k  Kempis  an  attempt  to  express  its  spirituality.  All  that 
is  best  and  greatest  in  the  literature  of  two  thousand  years 
has  been  rooted  ?n  it  and  has  sprung  from  it.  It  has  in- 
spired the  career  of  all  the  best  of  men  who  '  raised  strong 
arms  to  bring  heaven  a  little  nearer  to  our  earth.'  St. 
Vincent  de  Paul  learnt  from  its  pages  his  tenderness  for 
the  poor ;  and  John  Howard  his  love  for  the  suffering ;  and 
William  Wilberforce  his  compassion  for  the  slaves;  and 
Lord  Shaftesbury  the  dedication  of  his  life  to  the  ameliora- 
tion of  the  lot  of  his  f eUow-men.  Has  there  been  one  of  our 
foremost  statesmen  or  our  best  philanthropists  who  has  not 
confessed  the  force  of  its  inspiration  ?  It  dilated  and  in- 
spired the  immortal  song  of  Dante  and  of  Milton.  '  All  the 
best  and  brightest  English  verse,  from  the  poems  of  Chaucer 
to  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  in  their  noblest  parts,  are  echoes 
^  .  of  its  lessons ;  and  from  Cowper  to  Wordsworth,  from  Cole- 
P       ridge  to  Tennyson,  the  greatest  of  our  poets  have  drawn 


A  CLOUD  OF  WITNESSES  263 

from  its  pages  their  loftiest  wisdom.  It  inspired  the  pic- 
tures of  Fra  Angelico  and  Raphael,  the  music  of  Handel 
and  Mendelssohn.  It  kindled  the  intrepid  genius  of 
Luther,  the  bright  imagination  of  Bunyan,  the  burning 
zeal  of  Whitfield.  The  hundred  best  books,  the  hundred 
best  pictures,  the  hundred  greatest  strains  of  music  are  all 
in  it  and  aU  derived  from  it.  Augustine  said  long  ago 
that  in  the  great  poets  and  philosophers  of  pagan  antiquity 
he  found  many  things  that  are  noble  and  beautiful,  but 
not  among  them  all  could  he  find  '  Come  unto  Me,  all  ye 
that  are  weary  and  heavy  laden,  and  I  vsdll  give  you  rest.'  /  /, 

We  search  the  world  for  truth ;  we  cull 
The  good,  the  pure,  the  beautiful 
From  graven  stone  and  written  scroll, 
From  all  old  flower-fields  of  the  soul ; 
And,  weary  seekers  of  the  best. 
We  come  back  laden  from  our  quest, 
To  find  that  all  the  sages  said 
Is  in  the  Book  our  mothers  read.i 


Vast  indeed  is  the  cloud  of  witnesses  to  the  glory  and 
supremacy  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  '  Out  of  the  mouth  of 
two  or  three  witnesses  shall  every  word  be  established.' 
I  wOl  begin  with  a  pleiad  of  -witnesses,  chosen  fii-st  by  way 
of  specimen  from  aU  sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  yet 
unanimous  in  their  testimony  to  the  eternal  preciousness 
of  Holy  Writ.  I  will  once  more  adduce  the  opinions  of  a 
V  Romish  Cardinal ;  a  Jewish  litterateur;  an  American  Uni- 
tarian ;  a  German  scholar ;  a  French  critic ;  an  Englishman 
of  science;  and  an  Enghshman  of  letters.^    All  of  them 

1  J.  G.  Whittier,  Miriam. 

2  I  have  quoted  these  seven  in  The  People's  Bible  History. 


264  THE  BIBLE 

differed;  some  of  them  disbelieved:  yet  they  are  all  at 
one  as  to  the  unapproachable  supremacy  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures. 

1.  John  Henry  Newman  was  a  Romish  Cardinal  of  sin- 
\/cere  goodness  and  refined  genius.     He  said  of  the  Bible, 

'Its  light  is  like  the  body  of  heaven  in  its  clearness;  its 
vastness  like  the  bosom  of  the  sea;  its  variety  like  scenes 
of  nature.' 

2.  Eeinrich  Heine  was  a  Jew,  half  German,  half  French ; 
a  man  of  flashing  wit,  a  brilliant  stylist,  a  confirmed 
doubter.  After  a  Sunday  of  leaden  ennui  in  Heligoland, 
he  writes  that  he  took  up  the  Bible  in  desperation,  and 
spent  most  of  the  day  in  reading  it.  Though  he  confesses 
himself  a  secret  Hellene,  he  admits  that  he  was  not  only 
well  entertained  but  deeply  edified.  '  What  a  book ! '  he 
exclaimed.  *  Vast  and  wide  as  the  world !  rooted  in  the 
abysses  of  creation,  and  towering  up  beyond  the  blue 
secrets  of  heaven !  Sunrise  and  sunset,  birth  and  death, 
promise  and  fulfilment,  the  whole  drama  of  Humanity  are 
all  in  this  book ! ' 

'  It  is  the  Book  of  'Books,— Biblimi.  The  Jews  may  easily 
console  themselves  for  having  lost  Jerusalem,  and  the 
Temple,  and  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant,  and  the  golden 
vessels,  and  the  precious  things  of  Solomon.  Such  a  loss 
is  insignificant  compared  with  the  Bible,  the  imperishable 
treasure  which  they  have  rescued.  If  I  do  not  err,  it  was 
Mahomet  who  named  the  Jews  "  the  people  of  the  Book  " 
—a  name  which  remained  theirs  to  the  present  day,  and 
is  deeply  characteristic.  A  book  is  their  fatherland. 
They  live  within  the  boundaries  of  this  Book.  Here  do 
they  exercise  their  inalienable  rights  of  citizenship.  Here 
they  can  be  neither  persecuted  nor  despised.  Absorbed 
in  the  study  of  this  Book,  they  observed  little  of  the 


NEWMAN.     HEINE.     PARKER  265 

changes  which  went  on  about  them  in  the  world.  Nations 
arose  and  perished;  States  flom-ished  and  disappeared; 
revolutions  stormed  forth  out  of  the  ground,  but  they  lay 
bent  over  their  Book,  and  observed  nothing  of  the  wild 
tumult  of  the  times  that  passed  over  their  heads.' 
y  Nor  was  this  a  mere  passing  spasm  of  admiration. 
When  he  was  near  his  death,  after  years  of  agony  on  his 
mattress-coffin,  when  he  had  become  a  changed  man,  Heine 
wrote,  '  I  attribute  my  enlightenment  entii'ely  and  simply 
to  the  reading  of  a  book.  Of  a  book  ?  Yes !  and  it  is  an 
old  homely  book,  modest  as  nature— a  book  which  has  a 
look  modest  as  the  sun  which  warms  us,  as  the  bread 
which  nourishes  us — a  book  as  full  of  love  and  blessing  as 
the  old  mother  who  reads  in  it  with  her  dear  trembling 
lips,  and  this  book  is  the  Book,  the  Bible.  With  right  is  it 
named  the  Holy  Scriptures.  He  who  has  lost  his  God 
can  find  Him  again  in  this  book,  and  he  who  has  never 
known  Him  is  here  struck  by  the  breath  of  the  Divine 
Word.' 

3.  Theodore  Tarlter  was  a  Unitarian  minister  at  Boston, 
a  man  of  deep  earnestness,  of  great  eloquence,  of  splendid 
courage. 

'  This  collection  of  books  has  taken  such  a  hold  on  the 
world  as  no  other.  The  literature  of  Greece,  which  goes 
up  like  incense  from  that  land  of  temples  and  heroic  deeds, 
has  not  half  the  influence  of  this  book,  from  a  nation  alike 
despised  in  ancient  and  modern  times.  It  is  read  of  a 
Sunday  in  all  the  ten  thousand  pulpits  of  our  land ;  in  aU 
the  temples  of  Christendom  is  its  voice  lifted  up  week  by 
week.  The  sun  never  sets  on  its  gleaming  page.  It  goes 
equally  to  the  cottage  of  the  plain  man  and  the  palace  of 
the  king.  It  is  woven  into  the  literature  of  the  scholar, 
and  colours  the  talk  of  the  street.     The  barque  of  the 


v 


266  THE  BIBLE 

merchant  cannot  sail  the  sea  without  it;  no  ship  of  war 
goes  to  the  conflict  but  the  Bible  is  there.  It  enters  men's 
closets ;  mingles  in  all  the  grief  and  cheerfulness  of  life. 
The  affianced  maiden  prays  God  in  Scripture  for  strength 
in  her  new  duties.  Men  are  married  by  Scripture;  the 
Bible  attends  them  in  their  sickness,  when  the  fever  of  the 
world  is  on  them ;  the  aching  head  finds  a  softer  pUlow 
when  the  Bible  lies  underneath ;  the  mariner,  escaping  from 
shipwreck,  clutches  this  first  of  his  treasures,  and  keeps  it 
sacred  to  God.' 

4.  Heinrich  von  Ewald  was  a  German  scholar  of  immense 
learning,  who  by  indefatigable,  lifelong  study— amid  the 
universal  chorus  of  anathemas  from  that '  blind  and  naked 
Ignorance '  which 

Delivers  brawling  judgments  unashamed 
On  all  things  all  day  long— 

flung  more  light  on  the  true  meaning  and  history  of  Scrip- 
ture than  all  his  assailants  put  together.  One  day,  when 
the  late  Dean  Stanley  was  visiting  him,  a  New  Testament 
which  was  lying  on  a  little  table  happened  to  fall  to  the 
ground.  He  stooped  to  pick  it  up,  and  he  laid  it  again  on 
the  table.  '  It  is  impossible,'  says  Dean  Stanley, '  to  forget 
the  noble  enthusiasm  with  which  this  "  dangerous  heretic," 
as  he  was  regarded,  grasped  the  small  volume,  and  ex- 
claimed with  indescribable  emotion,  '  In  this  little  hook  is 
contained  all  the  best  wisdom  of  the  ivorld.^ 

5.  Again,  the  testimony  of  Ernest  Renan  will  not  be 
suspected  of  religious  bias.  He  was  a  French  sceptic  of 
wide  attainments  and  fascinating  style,  whose  general 
beliefs  were  of  the  loosest  and  vaguest  description.  Yet 
he  says :  '  Les  histoires  juives  et  chr^tiennes  ont  fait  la  joie 
de  dix-huit  siecles;  et  elles  ont  une  etonnante  efficacit6 


EWALD.     RENAN.     HUXLEY  267 

pour  am^liorer  les  rnceurs.     La  Bible  .   .  .  est,  malgr6 
tout,  le  grand  livre  consolateur  de  rHumanite.'  ^ 

6.  Professor  Huxley  was  a  man  of  science,  and  one  of  the 
most  eminent.  It  was  he  who  invented  the  word  '  Agnos- 
ticism,' and  he  accepted  the  name  'Agnostic'  Yet  he 
pleaded  in  the  School  Board  for  the  Bible,  as  the  best 
source  of  the  highest  education  for  children,  and  in  the 
'  Contemporary  Review '  for  December  1870  he  wrote :  '  I 
have  always  been  strongly  in  favour  of  secular  education, 
in  the  sense  of  education  ^vithout  theology,  but  I  must 
confess  I  have  been  no  less  seriously  perplexed  to  know  by 
what  practical  measui'es  the  religious  feeling,  which  is 
the  essential  basis  of  conduct,  was  to  be  kept  up  in  the 
present  utterly  chaotic  state  of  opinion  on  these  matters 
without  the  use  of  the  Bible.  The  pagan  moralists  lack 
life  and  colour,  and  even  the  noble  Stoic,  Marcus  Antoni- 
nus, is  too  high  and  refined  for  an  ordinary  child.  Take 
the  Bible  as  a  whole ;  make  the  severest  deductions  which 
fair  criticism  can  dictate  for  shortcomings  and  positive 
errors ;  ehminate,  as  a  sensible  lay  teacher  would  do  if  left 
to  himself,  all  that  it  is  not  desirable  for  children  to  occupy 
themselves  with ;  and  there  still  remains  in  this  old  litera- 
ture a  vast  residuum  of  moral  beauty  and  grandeur.  And 
then  consider  the  great  historical  fact  that  for  three  cen- 
turies this  book  has  been  woven  into  the  life  of  all  that  is 
best  and  noblest  in  English  history ;  that  it  has  become 
the  national  epic  of  Britain,  and  is  familiar  to  noble  and 
simple  from  John  o'  Groat's  House  to  Land's  End,  as  Dante 
and  Tasso  were  once  to  the  Italians ;  that  it  is  written  in 
the  noblest  and  purest  English,  and  abounds  in  exquisite 
beauties  of  a  merely  literary  form ;  and,  finally,  that  it 
forbids  the  veriest  hind  who  never  left  his  village  to  be 

1  Hist,  du  Peuple  Israel,  p.  vii. 


268  THE  BIBLE 

ignorant  of  tlie  existence  of  other  countries  and  other 
civilisations,  and  of  a  great  past,  stretching  back  to  the 
furthest  limits  of  the  oldest  nations  in  the  world.  By  the 
study  of  what  other  book  could  chUdi'en  be  so  much  hu- 
manised, and  made  to  feel  that  each  figure  in  that  vast 
historical  procession  fills,  like  themselves,  but  a  momentary 
space  in  the  interval  between  two  eternities,  and  earns  the 
blessings  or  the  curses  of  all  time,  according  to  its  efforts 
to  do  good  and  hate  evil,  even  as  they  also  are  earning 
their  payment  for  their  work  ? '  ^ 

Nor  is  this  Professor  Huxley's  only  testimony  to  the 
unique  glory  of  the  Scriptures.  '  It  appears  to  me  that  if 
there  is  anybody  more  objectionable  than  the  orthodox 
bibliolater  it  is  the  heterodox  Philistine  who  can  discover 
in  a  literature  which  in  some  respects  has  no  superior, 
nothing  but  a  subject  for  scoffing  and  an  occasion  for  the 
display  of  his  conceited  ignorance  of  the  debt  he  owes  to 
former  generations.'  '  The  Bible,'  he  says,  '  has  been  the 
\/  Magna  Charta  of  the  poor  and  of  the  oppressed ;  down  to 
modern  times  no  State  has  had  a  constitution  in  which 
the  interests  of  the  people  are  so  largely  taken  into  account ; 
in  which  the  duties,  so  much  more  than  the  privileges  of 
rulers,  are  insisted  on,  as  that  drawn  up  for  Israel ;  .  •  • 
nowhere  is  the  fundamental  truth  that  the  welfare  of  the 
State  in  the  long  run  depends  on  the  welfare  of  the  citizen, 
so  strongly  laid  down.  ...  I  do  not  say  that  even  the 
highest  Biblical  ideal  is  exclusive  of  others  or  needs  no 
supplement.  But  I  do  believe  that  the  human  race  is  not 
yet,  possibly  never  may  be,  in  a  position  to  dispense  with 
it.' 2 

7.  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  was  a  man  with  an  exquisite  gift 

^  Ef'says  on  Science  and  Education,  p.  397. 
2  Essays  on  Controverted  Questions,  pp.  55-58. 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD.  FABER     269 

of  style  and  of  critical  insight.  He  retained  but  little  faith 
in  the  miraculous ;  his  creed  was  anything  but  orthodox. 
Yet  the  Bible  was  his  chief  and  his  constant  study,  and  he 
even  contributed  a  most  important  element  to  the  true 
principles  of  its  elucidation  when  he  insisted  that  being  a 
literature  it  must  be  interpreted  on  the  fixed  principles  of 
literary  criticism.  His  wi-itings  abound  in  passages  which 
witness  to  his  intense  reverence  and  admiration  for  the 
Sacred  Books. 

'As  well  imagine  a  man/  he  says,  'with  a  sense  for 
sculpture  not  cultivating  it  by  the  help  of  the  remains  of 
Greek  art,  and  a  man  with  a  sense  for  poetry  not  culti- 
vating it  by  the  help  of  Homer  and  Shakespeare,  as  a  man 
with  a  sense  for  conduct  not  cultivating  it  by  the  help  of 
the  Bible.' 

n 

I  will  now  point  to  a  second  group  of  similar  testimonies 
from  men  no  less  separated  from  each  other  by  their  re- 
ligious beliefs. 

1.  F.  W.  Faher  was  a  Roman  Catholic  priest.  Speaking 
of  the  uncommon  beauty  and  marvellous  English  of  the 
Authorised  Version,  he  says : 

'  It  lives  on  the  ear  like  a  music  that  can  never  be  for- 
gotten, like  the  sound  of  church  bells  which  the  convert 
scarcely  knows  how  he  can  forego.  Its  felicities  often 
seem  to  be  things  rather  than  words.  It  is  part  of  the 
national  mind,  and  the  anchor  of  the  national  seriousness. 
Nay,  it  is  worshipped  with  a  positive  idolatry,  in  extenua- 
tion of  whose  fanaticism  its  intrinsic  beauty  pleads  avail- 
iugly  witli  the  scholar.  The  memory  of  the  dead  passes 
into  it.  The  potent  traditions  of  childhood  are  stereotj-ped 
in  its  verses.     It  is  the  representative  of  a  man's  best 


270  THE  BIBLE 

moments ;  all  that  there  has  been  about  him  of  soft  and 
gentle  and  pure  and  penitent  and  good,  speaks  to  him  for 
ever  out  of  his  Eughsh  Bible.  It  is  his  sacred  thing  which 
doubt  never  dimmed  and  controversy  never  soiled;  and 
in  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land  there  is  not  a  Pro- 
testant with  one  spark  of  religiousness  about  him  whose 
spiritual  biography  is  not  in  his  Saxon  Bible.' 

2.  Could  there  be  a  man  whose  whole  nature  fm-nished 
a  more  marked  contrast  to  F.  W.  Faber  than  Jean  Jacques 
Rousseau  f  Yet  the  French  savant  wrote,  '  I  must  confess 
to  you  that  the  majesty  of  the  Scriptures  astonishes  me ; 
the  hohness  of  the  Evangelists  speaks  to  my  heart  and 
has  such  striking  characters  of  truth,  and  is,  moreover,  so 
perfectly  inimitable,  that  if  it  had  been  the  invention  of 
men,  the  inventors  would  be  greater  than  the  greatest 
heroes.' 

3.  Lessing  was  a  German,  a  man  of  letters,  of  high  genius, 
and  a  very  liberal  thinker.     His  estimate  of  the  Bible  was 

,   as  follows :  '  The  Scriptures  for  1,700  years  have  occupied 
!/    the  mind  more  than  all  books,  have  enlightened  it  more 
than  all  other  books.' 

4.  Goethe  is  justly  regarded  as  a  type  of  modern  culture, 
a  man  of  genius,  of  talents,  of  scientific  insight ;  a  poet  and 
a  thinker.  He  stood  in  no  very  definite  relation  to  any 
branch  of  the  Ckristian  Church,  but  he  could  recognise 
everything  that  was  wise  and  beautiful.  He  read  the 
Bible  so  much  that  his  friends  reproached  him  for  wasting 
his  time  over  it.  And  this  among  other  things  is  what  he 
said  of  it : 

'I  am  convinced  that  the  Bible  becomes  even  more 
beautiful  the  more  one  understands  it ;  that  is,  the  more 
one  gets  insight  to  see  that  every  word  which  we  take 
generally  and  make  special  application  of  to  our  own 


ROUSSEAU.     LESSING.     GOETHE  271 

wants,  lias  had,  in  connection  with  certain  circumstances, 
with  certain  relations  of  time  and  place,  a  particular, 
directly  individual  reference  of  its  own.'  ^ 

And,  again, 

'  Let  culture  and  science  go  on  advancing,  and  the  mind 
progi'ess  as  it  may,  it  will  never  go  beyond  the  elevation 
and  moral  culture  of  Christianity  as  it  glistens  and  shines 
forth  in  the  Gospels.'  ^ 

And,  again, 

'  The  Bible  is  a  book  of  eternally  effective  power.' 

And,  once  more, 

'  It  is  to  its  intrinsic  value  that  the  Bible  owes  the  ex- 
traordinary veneration  in  which  it  is  held  by  so  many 
nations  and  generations.  It  is  not  only  a  popular  book, 
it  is  the  book  of  the  people.  .  .  .  The  greater  the  intel- 
lectual progress  of  ages,  the  more  fully  possible  will  it 
also  become  to  employ  the  Bible  both  as  the  foundation 
and  as  the  instrument  of  education— of  that  education  by 
which  not  pedants,  but  truly  wise  men  are  formed.' 

'  Take  the  Bible,  book  after  book,  and  you  will  find  that 
this  Book  of  Books  has  been  given  us  in  order  that,  in 
contact  with  it,  as  Avith  a  new  world,  we  may  study,  en- 
lighten, and  develop  ourselves.' 

And  as  to  the  place  of  the  Bible  in  education  he  said, 

'  \STien,  in  my  youth,  my  imagination,  ever  active,  bore 
me  away,  now  hither,  now  thither,  and  when  all  this 
blending  of  history  and  fable,  of  mythology  and  religion, 
threatened  to  unsettle  my  mind,  gladly  then  did  I  flee 
towards  those  Eastern  countries.     I  buried  myself  in  the 

1  See  Goethe,  Conversations,  March  11,  1832  (Eckermann,  Gesprdche 
mit  Goethe  (1876),  iii.  253-258). 

2  Coleridge  said  that  '  intense  study  of  the  Bible  will  keep  any  man 
from  being  vulgar  in  point  of  style.' 


272  THE   BIBLE 

first  books  of  Moses,  and  there,  amidst  those  wandering 
tribes,  I  found  myself  at  once  in  the  grandest  of  solitudes 
and  in  the  grandest  of  societies.' 

5.  B.  W.  Emerson  during  the  greater  part  of  his  life  was 
regarded  by  the  religious  world  in  general  as  an  audacious 
heretic,  a  man  too  Hberal  and  too  independent  for  even 
the  most  liberal  of  Unitarian  congregations.  And  Emer- 
son was  an  earnest  student,  a  wide  reader  of  all  the  best 
writings  of  the  world.  It  was  thus  that  he  spoke  of  the 
Bible : 

'  The  most  original  book  in  the  world  is  the  Bible.  This 
old  collection  of  the  ejaculations  of  love  and  di*ead,  of  the 
supreme  desires  and  contritions  of  men,  proceeding  out  of 
the  region  of  the  grand  and  eternal,  seems  .  .  .  the  al- 
phabet of  the  nations,  and  all  posterior  writings,  either 
the  chronicles  of  facts  under  very  inferior  ideas,  or,  when 
it  rises  to  sentiment,  the  combinations,  analogies,  or  de- 
gradation of  this.  The  elevation  of  this  book  maj'  be 
measured  b}'^  observing  how  certainly  all  elevation  of 
thought  clothes  itself  in  the  words  and  forms  of  thought 
of  that  book.  .  .  .  Wliatever  is  majestically  thought  in 
a  great  moral  element,  instantly  approaches  this  old 
Sanskrit.  .  .  .  Shakespeare,  the  first  literary  genius  of 
the  world,  the  highest  in  whom  the  moral  is  not  the  pre- 
dominating element,  leans  on  the  Bible ;  his  poetry  pre- 
supposes it.  If  we  examine  this  brilliant  influence- 
Shakespeare — as  it  lies  in  our  mind  we  shall  find  it  reve- 
rent, not  only  of  the  letter  of  this  book,  but  of  the  whole 
frame  of  society  which  stood  in  Europe  upon  it;  deeply 
indebted  to  the  traditional  morality— in  short,  compared 
with  the  tone  of  the  Prophets,  secondary.  .  .  .  People 
imagine  that  the  place  which  the  Bible  owes  in  the  world 
it  owes  to  miracles.    It  owes  it  simply  to  the  fact  that  it 


EMERSON.     DEMUSSET.    KUENEN        273 

came  out  of  a  profounder  depth  of  thought  than  any  other 
book.' 

And,  long  afterwards,  he  wrote  of  the  Bible  in  his  little 
poem  called  '  The  Problem' : 

Out  from  the  heart  of  nature  rolled 
The  burdens  of  the  Bible  old ; 
The  litanies  of  nations  came 
Like  the  volcano's  tongue  of  flame 
Up  from  the  burning  core  below— 
The  canticles  of  love  and  woe. 
The  word  unto  the  Prophets  spoken 
Was  writ  on  tablets  yet  unbroken ; 
Still  floats  upon  the  morning  wind, 
Still  whispers  to  the  willing  mind ; 
One  accent  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
The  heedless  world  has  never  lost. 

6.  The  French  poet  Alfred  de  Musset  was  '  a  child  of  the 
sunshine  and  the  storm ; '  and  when  he  died,  his  old  servant 
pointed  to  a  New  Testament  and  said  to  a  friend  who  came 
to  inquire  about  him,  '  I  know  not  what  Alfred  found  in 
that  book,  but  he  always  latterly  had  it  under  his  pillow 
that  he  might  read  it  when  he  would.' 

7.  The  Dutch  critic  Professor  Kuenen  criticised  the  Old 
Testament  with  the  most  unbiassed  freedom,  and  especially 
the  Prophets ;  yet  he  wrote  of  them : 

'  As  we  watch  the  weaving  of  the  web  of  Hebrew  life 
we  endeavour  to  trace  through  it  the  more  conspicuous 
threads.  Long  time  the  eye  follows  the  crimson ;  it  dis- 
appears at  length ;  but  the  golden  thread  of  sacred  pro- 
phecy continues  to  the  end.  The  Prophets  teach  us  to  live 
and  to  struggle ;  to  beheve  with  immovable  firmness ;  to 
hope  even  when  all  is  dark  around  us ;  to  trust  the  voice 
of  God  in  our  inmost  consciousness ;  to  speak  with  bold- 
ness and  with  power.' 

18 


274  THE   BIBLE 

8.  Michael  Faraday  was  oue  of  the  greatest  men  of 
science  whom  this  age  has  produced.  One  day,  when  he 
was  ill,  his  friend  Sir  Henry  Acland  found  him  resting 
his  head  on  a  table,  on  which  lay  an  open  book.  '  I  fear 
you  are  worse  to-day,'  he  said.  *  No,'  answered  Faraday, 
'it  is  not  that.  But  why'— he  asked,  with  his  hand  on 
the  Bible— 'why  will  people  go  astray,  when  they  have 
this  blessed  book  to  guide  them  ? ' 


in 


I  will  now  proceed  to  group  together  a  few  more  of  the 
remarkable  testimonies  to  the  unique  supremacy  of  Scrip- 
tui'e  over  all  other  hteratm*e— testimonies  gathered  from 
men  of  every  variety  of  genius  and  eminence,  and  from 
men  who,  though  they  differed  from  each  other  as  widely 
as  possible  in  their  religious  standpoint,  were  at  one  in 
then-  exaltation  of  Holy  Writ. 

Let  us  begin  with  great  authors. 

1.  Richard  Hooker : 

'  There  is  scarcely  any  noble  part  of  knowledge  worthy 
of  the  mind  of  man,  but  from  Scripture  it  may  have  some 
direction  and  light.' 

2.  Milton: 

'  There  are  no  songs  to  be  compared  with  the  songs  of 
Zion,  no  orations  equal  to  those  of  the  Prophets,  and  no 
politics  equal  to  those  the  Scriptures  can  teach  us.' 
And  of  the  Scriptures  in  general  he  says : 
'  I  shall  wish  I  may  deserve  to  be  reckoned  among  those 
who  admire  and  dwell  upon  them.' 

3.  The  Translators  of  1611,  in  their  Preface  to  the 
Reader,  used  forcible  and  eloquent  language. 


TRANSLATORS  OF   1611  275 

'  Men  talk  much  of  elpeaidivq  how  many  sweet  and  goodly- 
things  it  had  hanging  on  it ;  of  the  Philosopher's  Stone 
that  it  tui'neth  copper  into  gold ;  of  Cornu-copia  that  it  had 
all  things  necessary  for  food  in  it;  of  Panaces  the  herb, 
that  it  was  good  for  all  diseases ;  of  Catholicon  the  drug, 
that  it  is  instead  of  all  purges ;  of  Vulcanic  annoiu*,  that 
it  was  an  armour  of  proof  against  aU  thrusts  and  all  blows. 
Well,  that  which  they  falsely  or  vainly  attributed  to  these 
things  for  bodily  good,  we  may  justly  and  with  full  mea- 
sure ascribe  unto  the  Scripture  for  spiritual.  It  is  not 
only  an  armour,  but  a  whole  armoury  of  weapons,  both 
offensive  and  defensive ;  whereby  we  may  save  ourselves 
and  put  the  enemy  to  flight.  It  is  not  a  herb  but  a  tree, 
or  rather  a  whole  paradise  of  trees  of  life  which  bring 
forth  fruit  every  month,  and  the  fruit  thereof  is  for  meat 
and  the  leaves  for  medicine.  It  is  not  a  pot  of  manna  or 
a  cruse  of  oil  .  .  .  but  as  it  were  a  shower  of  heavenly 
bread  .  .  .  and  a  whole  cellar  full  of  oil  vessels.  In  a 
word,  it  is  a  panary  of  wholesome  food  against  fenowed 
traditions,  a  physician's  shop  (St.  Basil  calleth  it)  of  pre- 
servatives against  poisoned  heresies ;  a  pandect  of  profit- 
able laws  against  rebellious  spirits;  a  treasury  of  most 
costly  jewels  against  beggarly  rudiments ;  finallj'  a  foun- 
tain of  most  pure  water,  springing  up  into  everlasting 
life.' 

'  If  we  be  ignorant  the  Scriptures  will  instruct  us ;  if  out 
of  the  way,  they  will  bring  us  home ;  if  oiit  of  order,  they 
will  reform  us ;  if  in  heaviness,  comfort  us ;  if  dull,  quicken 
us ;  if  cold,  inflame  us.     ToUe,  lege  ;  tolle,  lege.^ 

4.  Spenser,  we  are  told,  studied  the  prophetic  writings 
before  he  wrote  the  '  Faerie  Queen.' 

5.  Bacon  has  more  than  seventy  allusions  to  the  Bible 
in  twenty-four  of  his  essays. 


276  THE   BIBLE 

6.  George  Herbert  wrote : 

The  Bible?    That's  the  Book.     The  Book  indeed, 

The  Book  of  Books, 

On  which  who  looks, 
As  he  should  do,  aright,  shall  never  need 

Wish  for  a  better  light 

To  guide  him  in  the  night. 

'Tis  heaven  in  perspective,  and  the  bliss 

Of  glory  here, 

If  anywhere, 
By  saints  on  earth  anticipated  is. 

Whilst  faith  to  every  word 

Its  being  doth  afford. i 

7.  George  Wither: 

For  many  books  I  care  not,  and  my  store 
Might  now  suffice  me,  though  I  had  no  more 
Than  God's  two  Testaments,  and  then  withal 
That  mighty  volume  which  the  world  we  call  .  .  . 
.   .   .  books  which  better  far  instruct  me  can 
Than  all  the  other  paper-works  of  man, 
And  some  of  these  I  may  be  reading  too 
Where'er  I  come,  or  whatsoe'er  I  do. 

8.  Izaak  Walton: 

Every  hour 
I  read  you,  kills  a  sin. 
Or  lets  a  virtue  in 
To  fight  against  it. 

9.  Sir  Isaac  Newton  : 

'  "We  account  the  Scriptures  of  God  to  be  the  most  sub- 
lime philosophy.' 

10.  Addison,  Johnson,  Pope,  Young  abound  in  Scriptural 
allusions,  and  that  in  their  most  beautifid  and  impressive 
passages. 

1  The  Synagogue,  14. 


COWPER.     COLLINS.     WESLEY  277 

11.  Sir  William  Jones  : 

'I  have  carefully  aud  regularly  perused  these  Holy 
Seriptui*es,  and  am  of  opinion  that  the  volume,  indepen- 
dently of  its  Divine  origin,  contains  more  sublimity,  purer 
morality,  more  important  history,  and  finer  strains  of  elo- 
quence, than  can  be  collected  from  all  other  books  in 
whatever  language  they  may  have  been  written.' 

12.  William  Coivper,  comparing  the  poor  Buckingham- 
shire lace-worker  with  Voltaire,  says : 

Yon  cottager  who  weaves  at  her  own  door, 
Pillow  and  bobbins  all  her  little  store, 
Just  earns  a  scanty  pittance,  and  at  night 
Lies  down  secure,  her  heart  and  pocket  light ; 
Just  knows,  and  knows  no  more,  her  Bible  true, 
A  truth  the  brilliant  Frenchman  never  knew ; 
And  in  that  treasure  reads  with  sparkling  eyes 
Her  title  to  a  mansion  in  the  skies. 

O  happy  peasant !     O  unhappy  bard ! 
His  the  mere  tinsel,  hers  the  rich  reward ! 
He,  praised  perhaps  for  ages  yet  to  come ; 
She,  never  heard  of  half  a  mile  from  home : 
He  lost  in  errors  his  vain  heart  prefers, 
She  safe  in  the  simplicity  of  hers.^ 

13.  The  poet  Collins  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life  with- 
drew from  his  general  studies,  and  travelled  with  no  other 
book  than  an  English  New  Te.«;tament,  such  as  children 
carry  to  school.  Dr.  Johnson  was  anxious  to  know  what 
companion  a  man  of  letters  had  chosen ;  the  poet  said,  '  I 
have  only  one  book,  but  that  book  is  the  best.' 

14.  John  Wesley : 

'1  am  a  creature  of  a  day,  passing  through  life  as  an 
arrow  through  the  air.  I  am  a  spirit,  coming  from  God, 
and  returning  to  God :  just  hovering  over  the  great  gulf ; 

1  Truth. 


278  THE   BIBLE 

a  few  moments  hence  I  am  no  more  seen ;  I  drop  into  an 
unchangeable  eternity !  I  want  to  know  one  thing— the 
way  to  heaven:  how  to  land  safe  on  that  happy  shore. 
God  Himself  has  condescended  to  teach  the  way.  He  hath 
written  it  down  in  a  book.  0  give  me  that  book !  At 
any  price,  give  me  the  book  of  God !  I  have  it :  here  is 
knowledge  enough  for  me.  Let  me  be  a  man  of  one 
book.  Here,  then,  I  am,  far  from  the  busy  ways  of  men. 
I  sit  down  alone ;  only  God  is  here.  In  His  presence  I  open, 
I  read  His  book ;  for  this  end— to  find  the  way  to  heaven.' 

15.  Coleridge  : 

'  For  more  than  a  thousand  years  the  Bible  collectively  ta- 
ken has  gone  hand  in  hand  with  civilisation,  science,  law — 
in  short,  with  the  moral  and  intellectual  cultivation  of  the 
species,  always  supporting  and  often  leading  the  way.'  ^ 

16.  Sir  Walter  Scott  : 

Within  this  awful  volume  lies 
The  mystery  of  mysteries : 
Happiest  he  of  human  race 
To  whom  God  has  given  grace 
To  read,  to  fear,  to  hope,  to  pray. 
To  lift  the  latch,  and  learn  the  way ; 
And  better  had  he  ne'er  been  bom 
Who  reads  to  doubt,  or  reads  to  scorn.  ^ 

'  Bring  me  the  book,'  he  said,  when  he  lay  dying.  '  What 
book  ? '  asked  Lockhart,  his  son-in-law.  '  The  Book,'  said 
Sir  Walter ;  '  the  Bible  ;  there  is  but  one.' 

17.  Lord  Macaulay,  who  knew  the  Bible  well  from  a 
child  and  often  refers  to  it,  said : 

'  The  English  Bible— a  book  which,  if  everything  else  in 
our  language  should  perish,  would  alone  suffice  to  show 
the  whole  extent  of  its  beauty  and  power.'  ^ 

1  Confessions  of  an  Enquiring  Spirit,  p.  69. 
2  27ie  Monastery.  ^  Essay  on  Dryden. 


DICKENS.    CARLYLE.     RUSKIN  279 

18.  Charles  Bickens  wrote  to  his  son : 

'It  is  my  comfort  and  my  sincere  conviction  that  you 
are  going  to  try  the  life  for  which  you  are  best  fitted.  I 
think  its  freedom  and  wikluess  more  suited  to  3'ou  than 
any  experiment  in  a  study  or  office  would  have  been.  Try 
to  do  to  others  as  you  would  have  them  do  to  j-ou,  and  do 
not  be  discouraged  if  they  fail  sometimes.  It  is  much 
better  for  you  that  they  should  fail  in  obeying  the  greatest 
rule  laid  down  by  our  Saviour,  than  that  you  should.  I 
put  a  New  Testament  among  your  books  for  the  veiy  same 
reasons  and  with  the  very  same  hopes  that  made  me  write 
an  easy  account  of  it  for  you  when  you  were  a  little  child 
—because  it  is  the  best  book  that  ever  was  or  will  be  known 
in  the  world,  and  because  it  teaches  you  the  best  lessons 
by  which  any  human  creature  who  tries  to  be  truthful  and 
faithful  to  duty  can  possibl}'  be  guided.'  ^ 

19.  Thomas  Carlyle. 

Carlyle  was  a  man  who  prided  himself  on  his  absolute 
veracity.  His  attitude  towards  the  Church,  his  attitude  to 
every  form  of  Christianity  was  one  of  intellectual  aloofness 
and  complete  independence.     He  says  of  the  Bible  that  it  is 

'The  one  Book  wherein,  for  thousands  of  years,  the 
spirit  of  man  has  found  light  and  nourishment,  and  a 
response  to  whatever  was  deepest  in  his  heart.' 

20.  Mr.  Rnskin  : 

'All  that  I  have  taught  of  Art,'  he  says,  'everything 
that  I  have  written,  whatever  greatness  there  has  been  in 
any  thought  of  mine,  whatever  I  have  done  in  my  life,  has 
simply  been  due  to  the  fact  that,  when  I  was  a  child,  my 
mother  dailv  read  with  me  a  part  of  the  Bible,  and  daily 
made  me  learn  a  part  of  it  by  heart.' 

'How  much  I  owe,'  he  says,  in  the  first  volume  of  his 
' Preeterita,'  'to  my  mothor  for  having  so  exercised  me  in 
1  Forster's  Life  of  Dickens,  iii.  445. 


280  THE   BIBLE 

the  Scriptures  as  to  make  me  grasp  them  in  what  my 
correspondent  would  call  their  "  concrete  whole ; "  and 
above  all  taught  me  to  reverence  them  as  transcending 
all  thought  and  ordaining  all  conduct.  This  she  effected, 
not  by  her  own  sayings  or  personal  authority,  but  simply 
by  compelling  me  to  read  the  Book  thoroughly  for  myself. 
As  soon  as  I  was  able  to  read  with  fluency,  she  began  a 
course  of  Bible  work  with  me,  which  never  ceased  till  I 
went  to  Oxford.  She  read  alternate  verses  to  me,  watch- 
ing at  fii'st  every  intonation  of  my  voice,  and  correcting 
the  false  ones,  till  she  made  me  understand  the  verse,  if 
within  my  reach,  rightly  and  energetically.  It  might  be 
beyond  me  altogether;  that  she  did  not  care  about;  but 
she  made  sure  that  as  soon  as  I  got  hold  of  it  at  all,  I 
should  get  hold  of  it  by  the  right  end.  In  this  way  she 
began  with  the  first  verse  of  Genesis,  and  went  straight 
through  to  the  last  verse  of  the  Apocalypse ;  hard  names, 
numbers,  Levitical  law  and  all ;  and  began  again  at  Gene- 
sis next  day.  If  a  name  was  hard,  the  better  the  exercise 
in  pronunciation;  if  a  chapter  was  tiresome,  the  better 
the  lesson  in  patience ;  if  loathsome,  the  better  the  lesson 
in  faith  that  there  was  some  use  in  its  being  so  outspoken. 
After  our  chapters  (from  two  to  three  a  day,  according  to 
their  length,  the  first  thing  after  breakfast,  and  no  inter- 
ruption from  servants  allowed,  none  from  visitors,  who 
either  joined  in  the  reading  or  had  to  stay  upstairs,  and 
none  from  any  visitings  or  excursions,  except  real  travel- 
ling), I  had  to  learn  a  few  verses  by  heart,  or  repeat,  to 
make  sure  I  had  not  lost,  something  of  what  was  already 
known ;  and,  with  the  chapters  above  enumerated,  I  had 
to  learn  the  whole  body  of  the  fine  old  Scottish  paraphrases, 
which  are  good,  melodious,  and  forceful  verse ;  and  to 
which,  together  with  the  Bible  itself,  I  owe  the  first  culti- 


FROUDE.     READE.     STEVENSON  281 

vation  of  my  ear  in  sound.  It  is  strange  that  of  all  the 
pieces  of  the  Bible  that  ni}'  mother  thus  taught  me,  that 
which  cost  me  most  to  learn,  and  which  was,  to  my  child's 
mind,  chiefly  repulsive— Psalm  119— has  now  become  of 
aU  the  most  precious  to  me  in  its  overflowing  and  glorious 
passion  of  love  for  the  law  of  God.' 

21.  The  two  greatest  poets  of  our  generation,  Broiniing 
and  Tennyson,  abound  in  lo^^ng  and  reverent  allusions  to 
the  Bible,  which  will  recur  to  the  memory  of  every  student 
of  their  works. 

22.  Mr.  J.  A.  Froude,  in  his  sketch  of  John  Bunyan, 
writes: 

'  The  Bible  thoroughly  kno^^-n  is  a  literature  of  itself— 
the  rarest  and  the  richest  in  all  dejjartments  of  thought 
or  imagination  which  exists.' 

23.  Charles  Reade  writes  that  he  was  astonished  at  the 
amazing  vividness  of  impression  produced  by  the  sacred 
writers  with  a  few  slight  touches.  He  considered  that  in 
a  few  lines  they  left  a  deeper  mark  than  many  a  writer  of 
genius  in  a  long  work  of  fiction.  This  consideration  suf- 
ficed, even  alone,  to  impress  on  him  a  sense  of  their  tran- 
scendent value. 

24.  Speaking  of  the  matchless  verve  and  insight  which 
we  find  in  the  delineation  of  characters  in  the  Bible,  an- 
other of  our  most  eminent  modem  novelists,  Mr.  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson,  says : 

'  Written  in  the  East,  these  characters  live  for  ever  in 
the  West ;  written  in  one  province,  they  pervade  the  world ; 
penned  in  rude  times,  they  are  prized  more  and  more  as 
ci\nlisation  advances ;  product  of  antiquity,  they  come  home 
to  the  business  and  bosoms  of  men,  women,  and  chihlTon 
in  modern  days.  Then  is  it  any  exaggeration  to  say  that 
the  "characters  of  Scripture  are  a  marvel  of  the  mind"?' 


V 


282  THE  BIBLE 

25.  Another  eminent  novelist,  Mr.  Mall  Caine,  writes  in 
'  MeClure's  Magazine ' : 

'  I  think  that  I  know  my  Bible  as  few  literary  men  know 
it.  There  is  no  book  in  the  world  like  it,  and  the  finest 
novels  ever  written  fall  far  short  in  interest  of  any  one  of 
the  stories  it  tells.  Whatever  strong  situations  I  have  in 
my  books  are  not  of  my  creation,  but  are  taken  from  the 
Bible.  "  The  Deemster  "  is  the  story  of  the  Prodigal  Son. 
"  The  Bondman  "  is  the  story  of  Esau  and  Jacob.  "  The 
Scapegoat"  is  the  story  of  Eli  and  his  sons,  but  with 
Samuel  as  a  little  girl ;  and  "  The  Manxman  "  is  the  story 
of  David  and  Uriah.' 

26.  Mr.  J.  H.  Green  wrote  his  admirable  history  of  Eng- 
land without  the  smallest  touch  of  clerical  bias,  and,  speak- 
ing simply  as  an  observer  and  an  impartial  historian,  he 
records  the  memorably  noble  effects  produced  upon  Eng- 
land by  the  possession  of  the  Scriptures  in  a  language 
which  the  people  could  understand. 

'  England  became  the  people  of  a  Book,  and  that  Book 
was  the  Bible.  It  was,  as  yet,  the  one  English  book  which 
was  familiar  to  every  Englishman.  It  was  read  in 
churches,  and  it  was  read  at  home,  and  everywhere  its 
words,  as  they  fell  on  ears  which  custom  had  not  deadened 
to  their  force  and  beauty,  kindled  a  startling  enthusiasm. 
.  .  .  Elizabeth  might  silence  or  tune  the  pulpits,  but  it 
was  impossible  for  her  to  silence  or  tune  the  great  preachers 
of  justice,  and  mercy,  and  truth,  who  spoke  from  the  Book 
which  the  Lord  again  opened  to  the  people.  .  .  .  The 
effect  of  the  Bible  in  this  way  was  simply  amazing.  The 
whole  temper  of  the  nation  was  changed.  A  new  concep- 
tion of  life  and  of  man  superseded  the  old.  A  new  moral 
and  religious  impulse  spread  through  every  class.  .  .  . 
Theology  rules  there,  said  Grotius  of  England,  only  ten 


/ 


RULERS  AND   STATESMEN  283 

years  after  Elizabeth's  death.     The  whole  nation,  in  fact, 
becomes  a  Church.' 

IV 

Let  us  now  adduce  the  opinions  of  a  few  kings  and 
statesmen. 

1.  St.  Louis  the  Ninth  of  France  '  Sanctorum  Bibliorum 
lectione  mire  delectabatui'.' 

2.  Henry  the  Sixth  '  in  orationibus  aut  in  Scripturarura 
lectionibus  assidue  erat  occupatus.' 

3.  John  the  Second,  King  of  Castile,  was  a  constant  Bible 
reader. 

4.  Alonso  the  Fifth  of  Aragon  gloried  in  having  read  the 
Bible  fourteen  times,  with  glosses  and  notes.  ^ 

5.  King  Edward  the  Sixth.  At  the  coronation  of  the 
young  King  Edward  VI.,  three  swords  were  brought  to 
be  carried  before  him,  as  signs  of  his  being  head  of  three 
kingdoms.  '  There  is  one  sword  yet  lacking,'  said  the  king, 
'  the  Bible.  That  book  is  the  sword  of  the  Spuit,  and  to 
be  preferred  before  any  other.  Without  that  sword  we 
can  do  nothing,  we  have  no  power.'  And,  so  it  is  said,  at 
his  command,  the  Bible  was  also  carried  before  him  in  the 
procession.- 

1  I  quote  these  four  instances  from  Father  Clarke  (in  The  Tablet, 
January  5,  1889). 

1  In  the  Coronation  Service  the  Dean  of  Westminster  is  directed, 
after  the  actual  coronation,  '  to  take  from  off  the  altar  the  Holy  Bible 
which  was  carried  in  the  procession,  and  deliver  it  to  the  Archbishop, 
who  shall  present  it  to  the  Queen,  first  saying  these  words  to  her : 
"  Our  gracious  Queen,  we  present  you  with  this  book,  the  most  valu- 
able thing  that  this  world  affords.  Here  is  wisdom  :  this  is  the  royal 
law :  these  are  the  holy  oracles  of  God." '  Bishop  Westcott  thinks 
that  the  custom  was  first  introduced  at  the  coronation  of  William  and 
Mary. 


284  THE   BIBLE 

6.  Very  remarkable  was  the  emphatic  testimony  of 
Napoleon  I.  to  the  Bible  as  recorded  in  Bertrand's  Memoirs. 
'  Behold  it  upon  this  table '  (here  he  solemnly  placed  his 
hand  upon  it).  '  I  never  omit  to  read  it,  and  every  day 
with  the  same  pleasui-e.  Nowhere  is  to  be  found  such  a 
series  of  beautiful  ideas,  admirable  moral  maxims,  which 
produce  in  one's  soul  the  same  emotion  which  one  expe- 
riences in  contemplating  the  infinite  expanse  of  the  skies 
resplendent  upon  a  summer's  night  with  all  the  brilliance 
of  the  stars.  Not  only  is  one's  mind  absorbed,  it  is  con- 
trolled, and  the  soul  can  never  go  astray  with  this  book 
for  its  guide.'  ^ 

7.  Lord  Bacoti—^The  Student's  Prayer' : 

'  To  God  the  Father,  God  the  Word,  God  the  Spirit  we 
pour  forth  most  humble  and  hearty  supplications  that  He, 
remembering  the  calamities  of  mankind,  and  the  pilgrim- 
age of  this  our  life,  in  which  we  wear  out  days  few  and 
evil,  would  please  to  open  to  us  new  refreshments  out  of 
the  fountain  of  His  goodness  for  the  alleviating  of  our 
miseries.  This  also  we  humbly  and  earnestly  beg,  that 
human  things  may  not  prejudice  such  as  are  Divine; 
neither  that  from  the  unlocking  of  the  gates  of  sense  and 
the  kindling  of  a  greater  natural  Kght  anything  of  incre- 
dulity or  intellectual  night  may  arise  in  our  minds  towards 
Divine'mysteries ;  but  rather  that  by  our  minds  thoroughly 
cleansed  and  purged  from  fancy  and  vanities,  and  yet 
subject  and  perfectly  given  up  to  the  Divine  oracles,  there 
may  be  given  unto  faith  such  things  as  are  faith's.' 

8.  John  Selden :  '  I  have  surveyed  most  of  the  learning 
found  among  the  sons  of  men ;  but  I  can  stay  my  soul  on 
none  of  them  but  the  Bible.' 

9.  Sir  Matthew  Hale  (Lord  Chief  Justice) :  '  Every  mom- 

1  See  Table  Talk  of  Napoleon  I.  p.  120. 


BACON.  BLACKSTONE.  GLADSTONE  285 

ing  read  seriously  and  reverently  a  portion  of  the  Holy 
Scripture,  and  acquaint  yourself  with  the  doctrine  thereof. 
It  is  a  book  full  of  light  and  wisdom,  and  ^\t11  make  you 
wise  to  eternal  life.' 

y  10.  Judge  BlacJcstotie,  in  his  famous  '  Commentaries  on 
the  Laws  of  England,'  says  that  '  the  Bible  has  always 
been  regarded  as  part  of  the  Common  Law  of  England.' 
V  11.  Edmund  Burke:  'The  Bible  is  not  a  book,  but  a 
literatui'e,  and  indeed  an  infinite  collection  of  the  most 
varied  and  the  most  venerable  literature.' 

y  12.  William  Wilberforce :  '  Through  all  my  perplexities 
and  distresses,  I  seldom  read  any  other  book,  and  I  as 
rarely  have  felt  the  want  of  any  other.  It  has  been  my 
houi'ly  study.' 

^  13.  Mr.  Gladstone :  '  It  is  supremacy,  not  precedence, 
that  we  ask  for  the  Bible ;  it  is  contrast  as  well  as  resem- 
blance, that  we  must  feel  compelled  to  insist  on.  The 
Bible  is  stamped  with  speciality  of  origin,  and  an  immea- 
surable distance  separates  it  from  all  competitors. 

'Who  doubts  that,  times  without  number,  particular 
portions  of  Scripture  find  theii*  way  to  the  human  soul  as 
if  they  were  embassies  from  on  high,  each  with  its  own 
commission  of  comfort,  of  guidance,  or  of  warning  ?  What 
crisis,  what  trouble,  what  perplexity  of  life  has  failed  or 
can  fail  to  draw  from  tliis  inexhaustible  treasure-house  its 
proper  supply?  What  profession,  what  position,  is  not 
daily  and  hourly  enriched  by  these  words  which  repetition 
never  weakens,  which  carry  with  them  now,  as  in  the  days 
of  their  first  utterance,  the  freshness  of  youth  and  immor- 
tality ?  When  the  solitary  student  opens  all  his  heart  to 
drink  them  in,  they  will  reward  his  toil.  And  in  forms 
yet  more  hidden  and  withdrawn,  in  the  retirement  of  the 
chamber,  in  tlie  stillness  of  the  night  season,  upon  the  bed 


286  THE  BIBLE 

of  sickness,  and  in  the  face  of  death,  the  Bible  will  be 
there,  its  several  words  how  often  winged  with  their  several 
and  special  messages  to  heal  and  to  soothe,  to  uplift  and 
uphold,  to  invigorate  and  stir.  Nay,  more,  perhaps,  than 
this :  amid  the  crowds  of  the  court,  or  the  forum,  or  the 
street,  or  the  market-place,  where  every  thought  of  every 
soul  seems  to  be  set  upon  the  excitements  of  ambition,  or 
of  business,  or  of  pleasure,  there  too,  even  there,  the  still 
small  voice  of  the  Holy  Bible  wiU  be  heard,  and  the  soul, 
aided  by  some  blessed  word,  may  find  wings  like  a  dove, 
may  flee  away  and  be  at  rest.' 


Of  American  statesmen  and  writers  we  may  adduce, 

1.  President  John  Quincy  Adams  : 

'  The  first  and  almost  the  only  book  deserving  of  uni- 
versal attention  is  the  Bible.  The  Bible  is  the  book  of  all 
others  to  be  read  at  all  ages  and  in  all  conditions  of  human 
life ;  not  to  be  read  once  or  twice  through  and  then  laid 
aside,  but  to  be  read  in  small  portions  of  one  or  two  chap- 
ters every  day,  and  never  to  be  intermitted  except  by 
some  overruling  necessity.  I  speak  as  a  man  of  the  world 
to  men  of  the  world,  and  I  say  to  you,  "  Search  the  Scrip- 
tures." 

*  I  have  for  many  years  made  it  a  practice  to  read  through 
the  Bible  once  a  year,  ...  It  is  an  invaluable  and  inex- 
haustible mine  of  knowledge  and  virtue.' 

2.  Andrew  Jackson,  President  of  the  United  States. 
When  he  lay  on  his  deathbed  he  pointed  to  the  Family 
Bible  which  lay  on  the  table  beside  him,  and  said  to  his 
physician : 

'  That  book,  sir,  is  the  rock  on  which  our  Republic  rests.' 


AMERICAN  STATESMEN  287 

3.  Senator  W.  B.  Leigh,  a  famous  Virginian  lawyer : 

'I  advise  every  man  to  read  his  Bible.  I  speak  of  it 
here  as  a  book  which  it  behoves  a  lawj'er  to  make  himself 
thoroughly  acquainted  with.  It  is  the  code  of  ethics  of 
every  Christian  country  on  the  globe,  and  tends,  above  aU 
other  books,  to  elucidate  the  spirit  of  law  throughout  the 
Christian  world.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  part  of  the  practical  law 
of  every  Christian  nation,  whether  recognised  as  such  or 
not.' 
y^      4.  Daniel  Webster,  the  gi-eat  American  orator : 

'From  the  time  that,  at  my  mother's  feet  or  on  my 
father's  knee,  I  first  learned  to  lisp  verses  from  the  sacred 
writings,  they  have  been  my  daily  study  and  vigilant  con- 
templation. If  there  be  anything  in  my  style  or  thoughts 
to  be  commended,  the  credit  is  due  to  my  kind  parents  in 
instilling  into  my  mind  an  early  love  of  the  Scriptui'es.' 

And,  again, 

'  If  we  abide  by  the  principles  taught  in  the  Bible,  our 
country  will  go  on  prospering  and  to  prosper ;  but  if  we 
and  our  posterity  neglect  its  instructions  and  authority, 
no  man  can  tell  how  sudden  a  catastrophe  may  overwhelm 
us  and  bury  our  glory  in  profound  obscurity.' 

And  in  his  speech  on  the  completion  of  the  Bunker 
Hill  Monument  (1843),  he  said,  '  The  Bible  is  a  book  of 
faith,  and  a  book  of  doctrine,  and  a  book  of  morals,  and 
a  book  of  religion,  of  especial  revelation  from  God.' 

When  he  lay  on  his  deathbed  his  physician  quoted  to 
him  the  verse  of  Psalm  xxiii.  — '  Yea,  though  I  walk  through 
the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  I  will  fear  no  evil :  for 
Thou  art  with  me ;  Thy  rod  and  Thy  staff  they  comfort 
me.'  And  the  great  strong  man  faltered  out,  *  Yes ;  that 
is  what  I  want.  Thy  rod,  Thy  rod ;  Thy  staff,  Thy  staff.' 
They  were  the  last  words  he  spoke. 


288  THE  BIBLE 

5.  Secretary  Seward :  '  The  whole  life  of  human  progress 
is  suspended  on  the  ever-growing  influence  of  the  Bible.' 

6.  General  Grant,  President  of  the  United  States,  sent  a 
message  to  this  effect  to  the  Sunday-school  children  of 
America  in  1876 :  '  Hold  fast  to  the  Bible  as  the  sheet 
anchor  to  your  liberties.  Write  its  precepts  in  your  heart 
and  practise  them  in  your  lives.  To  the  influence  of  this 
book  we  are  indebted  for  all  the  progress  made  in  true  civili- 
sation, and  to  this  we  must  look  as  our  guide  in  the  future. 

7.  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  who  did  more  than  any  man 
to  sweep  away  the  curse  of  American  slavery,  and  who 
often  had  the  Bible  flung  in  his  face  by  its  'religious' 
supporters,  grew  indeed  to  a  clearer  apprehension  of  what 
the  Bible  is  and  what  it  is  not,  and  yet  he  said, '  Take  away 
the  Bible  from  us,  and  our  warfare  against  intemperance, 
and  impurity,  and  oppression,  and  infidelity,  and  crime  is 
at  an  end.  We  have  no  authority  to  speak,  no  courage 
to  act.'  Who,  then,  can  adequately  estimate  its  immea- 
surable influence  on  the  world's  greatest  literature  ? 

8.  '  Of  all  books,'  said  Mr.  Dana  to  the  students  of  Union 
College, '  of  all  books,  the  most  indispensable  and  the  most 
useful,  the  one  whose  knowledge  is  most  effective,  is  the 
Bible.  There  is  no  book  from  which  more  valuable  lessons 
can  be  learned.  I  am  considering  it  now  not  as  a  religious 
book,  but  as  a  manual  of  utility,  of  professional  prepara- 
tion and  professional  use  for  a  journalist.  There  is,  per- 
haps, no  book  whose  style  is  more  suggestive  and  more 
instructive,  from  which  you  learn  more  directly  that  sub- 
lime simplicity  which  never  exaggerates,  which  recounts 
the  greatest  event  with  solemnity,  of  course,  but  without 
sentimentality  or  affectation,  none  which  you  open  with 
such  confidence  and  lay  down  with  such  reverence.  There 
is  no  book  like  the  Bible.' 


AMERICAN  WRITERS  289 

9.  Mr.  Charles  Dudley  Warner  wrote  recently  in  '  Har- 
per's Magazine ' : 

'Wliolly  apart  from  its  religious  or  from  its  ethical 
value,  the  Bible  is  the  one  book  that  no  intelligent  person 
who  wishes  to  come  into  contact  with  the  world  of  thought 
and  to  share  the  ideas  of  the  great  minds  of  the  Christian 
era  can  afford  to  be  ignorant  of.  All  modern  literature 
and  all  art  are  permeated  with  it.  There  is  scarcely  a 
great  work  in  the  language  that  can  be  fully  understood 
and  enjoyed  without  this  knowledge,  so  full  is  it  of  allu- 
sions and  illustrations  from  the  Bible.  This  is  true  of 
fiction,  of  poetry,  of  economic  and  philosophic  works,  and 
also  of  the  scientific  and  even  agnostic  treatises.  It  is  not 
at  all  a  question  of  religion,  or  theology,  or  of  dogma ;  it 
is  a  question  of  general  intelligence.  A  boy  or  girl  at 
college  in  the  presence  of  the  works  set  for  either  to 
master,  without  a  fair  knowledge  of  the  Bible  is  an  igno- 
ramus, and  is  disadvantaged  accordingly'.  It  is  in  itself 
almost  a  liberal  education,  as  many  great  masters  in  litera- 
ture have  testified.  It  has  so  entered  into  law,  literature, 
thought,  the  whole  modern  life  of  the  Christian  world,  that 
ignorance  of  it  is  a  most  serious  disadvantage  to  the 
student.' 

10.  We  should  perhaps  hardly  have  expected  a  glowing 
eulogy  of  the  Bible  from  Mr.  Walt  Whitman.  Yet  in  his 
'  November  Boughs '  he  wrote : 

'The  Bible  as  Poetry.  I've  said  nothing  yet  of  the 
cumulus  of  associations  of  the  Bible  as  a  poetic  entity, 
and  of  every  portion  of  it.  Not  the  old  edifice  only— the 
congeries  also  of  events,  and  struggles,  and  surroundings, 
of  which  it  has  been  the  scene  and  motive— even  the  hor- 
rors, dreads,  deaths.  How  many  ages  and  generations 
have  brooded  and  wept  and  agonised  over  this  book! 
19 


290  THE  BIBLE 

What  untenable  joys  and  ecstasies,  what  support  to  mar- 
tjnrs  at  the  stake,  from  it !  To  what  myriads  has  it  been 
the  shore  and  rock  of  safety— the  refuge  from  driving 
tempest  and  wreck !  Translated  in  all  languages,  how  it 
has  united  this  diverse  world !  Of  civilised  lands  to-day> 
whose  of  our  retrospects  has  it  not  interwoven  and  linked 
and  permeated  ?  Not  only  does  it  bring  us  what  is  clasped 
within  its  covers :  nay,  that  is  the  least  of  what  it  brings. 
Of  its  thousands  there  is  not  a  verse,  not  a  word,  but 
is  thick-studded  with  human  emotion.  Successions  of 
fathers  and  sons,  mothers  and  daughters,  of  our  own 
antecedents,  inseparable  from  that  background  of  us,  on 
which,  phantasmal  as  it  is,  all  that  we  are  to-day  inevitably 
depends— our  ancestry,  our  past.' 

11.  Let  me  add  the  testimony  of  one  of  the  best  known 
of  the  great  philanthropists  of  America. 

It  is  related  of  George  Peabody  that  when  he  was  quite 
an  old  man,  sitting  in  his  office  one  day  in  London,  a  boy 
brought  him  a  New  Testament  for  some  purpose,  I  know 
not  what ;  but  the  old  man,  looking  up,  said :  '  My  boy, 
you  carry  that  book  easily  in  your  youth,  but  when  you 
are  as  old  as  I  am  it  must  carry  you.' 

After  reading  so  many  and  such  varied  testimonies,  may 
we  not  well  say  with  Tertullian : 

'adoro  scripture  plenitudinem  '  ?  1 

1  Tert.  c.  JSermog.  24. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE   BIBLE   AND   INDIVIDUAL  SOULS. 

O  that  I  knew  how  all  thy  lights  combine, 
And  the  configiu-ations  of  their  glorie  ! 
Seeing  not  only  how  each  verse  doth  shine, 
But  all  the  constellations  of  the  stone. 

6.  Herbert. 

I  WILL  now  furnish  a  few  instances  in  whicli  isolated  words 
and  passages  of  the  Bible  have  had  an  overwhelming 
influence  for  good  upon  individual  souls,  who,  after  having 
been  themselves  won,  mastered,  converted  by  those  texts, 
have,  in  some  cases,  swayed  the  tendencies  of  generations 
of  mankind  for  long  centimes. 

A  poet  tells  us  that  he  was  once  walking  over  a  wide 
moor ;  at  one  point  of  it  he  picked  up  an  eagle's  feather ; 
weU,  he  forgot  the  rest  of  his  journey,  but  that  spot  was 
imprinted  on  his  mind.  I  once  stood  upon  a  pier  and  was 
struck,  as  I  had  never  been  before,  by  the  way  in  which 
each  separate  wave  seemed  to  flash  up  into  the  sunshine  a 
handful  of  diamonds.  I  shall  never  forget  those  particular 
waves. 

"We  may  sometimes  walk  on  long  shores  of  yellow  sand, 
and  here  and  there  one  single  sand-grain  out  of  the  innu- 
merable multitudes  may  seem  to  flame  out  into  a  ruby  or 
an  emerald,  because  a  sunbeam  has  smitten  it  and  trans- 

291 


292  THE  BIBLE 

figured  it !  So  in  Holy  Writ :  words  of  it,  expressions  of  it, 
separate  points  of  it,  by  themselves,  may  sometimes  create  an 
indelible  impression.  The  Jewish  High  Priest  wore  on  his 
ephod  a  breastplate, '  ardent  with  gems  oracular,'  to  which 
was,  in  some  mysterious  way,  attached  an  oracle,  the  whole 
being  called  Urim  and  Thummim,  or  '  Lights  and  Truths.' 
The  old  Rabbis  said  that  the  way  in  which  the  High  Priest 
ascertained  the  will  of  God  from  the  Urim,  was,  that  he 
gazed  on  the  graven  names  of  the  tribes  of  Israel,  until  a 
fii-e  of  God  stole  in  mysterious  gleams  over  the  letters,  and 
spelt  out  words  of  guidance.  The  Holy  Scriptures  are,  if 
we  make  them  so,  such  a  Urim  and  Thummim ;  such  mani- 
festations of  truths,  such  gleams  and  flashes  of  Holy  Light. 
Sometimes  the  Spirit  of  God,  without  oui'  desire,  may,  as 
it  were,  flame  out  before  us,  in  letters  of  intense  revelation, 
on  the  emerald  or  chrysolite  of  some  familiar  text ;  some- 
times in  the  night  of  meditation,  it  may  vivify  with  celestial 
glimmerings  some  long-remembered  but  hitherto  inopera- 
tive words. 

Let  me  illustrate  the  fact  by  actual  transcripts  from 
human  experience. 

i.  Fifteen  hundred  and  seven  years  ago  there  was  a  dark, 
brilliant,  beautiful,  hot-blooded  youth,  born  in  Tagaste: 

Into  the  presence  of  the  lad  did  pass 
An  influence  from  a  climate  as  of  flame ; 
And  in  those  lustrous  eyes  of  his  there  was 
A  tint  of  flowers  and  oceans  far  away 
Amid  the  woods  and  waves  of  Africa. 

This  youth  had  a  heathen  father,  but  a  saintly  mother. 
He  had  been  under  religious  teaching  from  earliest  years ; 
but,  overpowered  by  the  seductions  of  sensuality,  he  had 
lived  an  impure  life,  and  forged  for  himself  fatal  fetters 


ST.  AUGUSTINE  293 

of  habit  which  he  could  not  break,  and  which  he  thought 
that  no  force  on  earth  could  ever  break.  At  Milan  he  was 
influenced  by  the  great  Bishop  St.  Ambrose, '  having  been 
led  unknowingly  by  God  to  him,  that  he  might  knowingly 
be  led  to  God  by  him.'  One  day  the  story  of  the  lives  of 
some  saints  of  God  had  flung  this  youth  into  a  tumult  of 
agitation  beyond  all  wont.  His  forehead,  cheeks,  eyes, 
colour,  and  tone  of  voice  were  more  eloquent  than  his 
words.  He  rushed  into  his  little  garden  to  fight  out  the 
battle  with  his  o\Nni  tumultuous  soul.  '  A  violent  storm,' 
he  says, '  raged  within  me,  bringing  with  it  a  flood  of  tears. 
Rising,  I  flung  myself  under  a  fig-tree  in  an  agony  of 
remorse,  exclaiming,  "How  long,  O  Lord?  how  long? 
Remember  not  my  former  sins !  To-morrow  ?  and  to-mor- 
row?—why  should  there  not  be  in  this  very  hour  an  end 
to  my  baseness?'"  In  the  midst  of  his  agitated  prayer, 
he  heard  the  voice  of  a  child— whether  boy  or  girl  he 
knew  not— singing,  again  and  again,  the  words  '  Tolle^  lege  ; 
tolle,  lege!  Believing  this  to  be  a  voice  from  God,  bidding 
him  to  open  a  book,  and  read  the  first  verse  on  which  he 
lighted,  he  repressed  his  tears,  and  rushing  back  to  the 
place  where  he  had  left  his  friend  Alypius  sitting,  he 
opened  the  MS.  of  St.  Paul  which  was  lying  there,  and 
read  in  silence  the  verse  on  which  his  eyes  first  fell.  It 
was,  '  Not  in  rioting  and  drunkenness,  not  in  chambering 
and  wantonness.  But  put  ye  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
and  make  not  provision  for  the  flesh  to  fulfil  the  lusts 
thereof.'  'I  wished,'  he  said,  'to  read  no  more.  There 
was  no  need.  For,  in.stantly,  as  though  the  light  of  salva- 
tion had  been  poured  into  my  heart,  with  the  close  of  this 
sentence,  aU  the  darkness  of  my  doubts  had  fled  away.' 

The  name  of  that  youth  was  St.  Augustine ;  that  Divine 
lightning  flash  fused  the  sensualist  into  the  saint;  that 


294  THE  BIBLE 

one  text  rescued  him,  and  since  then  he  has  exercised  un- 
told influence  over  thousands  of  human  souls. 

ii.  A  second  instance.  Just  387  years  ago,  in  1510,  a 
German  youth,  a  pious  monk,  full  of  intense  ardoui'  and 
enthusiasm,  went  on  a  pilgrimage  to  Rome.  His  visit 
frightfully  disenchanted  him.  He  found  a  hollow  rehgion 
— a  form  which  evinced  no  corresponding  reality.  He 
found  Popes,  Cardinals,  and  Priests  tainted  with  atheism 
and  indifference,  amid  the  terrible  prevalence  of  unblush- 
ing immorality.  There  is  at  Rome  a  staircase,  called  the 
Santa  Scala,  which  professes  to  be  that  which  Christ  as- 
cended to  the  judgment  seat  of  Pilate.  No  one  is  allowed 
to  go  up  except  upon  liis  knees ;  and  to  every  one  who  as- 
cends it  on  his  knees  are  promised,  I  know  not  how  many 
Papal  Indulgences.  This  earnest  and  devout  German 
youth— a  j^outh  terribly  in  earnest,  a  youth  who  could  not 
live  on  gilded  shams— began  the  ascent  on  his  knees ;  but 
when  he  was  half-way  up,  there  bvirst  upon  his  soul,  like 
the  rush  of  an  avalanche,  the  text,  '  The  just  shall  live 
by  faith.'  By  faith,  not  by  sham  penances ;  by  faith,  not 
by  will  worship  and  voluntary  humility ;  by  faith,  not  by 
external  mechanical  acts.  Of  what  use  to  him,  in  compari- 
son with  even  one  of  the  sacrifices  which  God  approves, 
would  be  100,000  years  of  such  indulgences  as  such  priests 
as  he  saw  at  Rome,  or  as  all  the  priests  in  the  whole  world, 
could  idly  promise  ?  They  were  not  worth  the  breath  that 
uttered  them  or  the  paper  on  which  they  were  written. 

He  who  hears  the  voice  of  God  in  his  soul  can  listen  no 
longer  to  the  lies  of  man.  Luther,  for  it  was  Martin 
Luther,  the  son  of  the  German  miner  of  Eisenach,  rose 
from  his  knees,  walked  down  the  steps ;  and  by  that  one 
text,  the  glory  of  the  bright  and  bhssful  Reformation— in 
which  '  the  sweet  odour  of  the  returning  Gospel  of  Christ 


FRANCIS  XAVIER  295 

has  embathed  men's  souls  in  the  fragrancy  of  heaven,' 
and  emancipated  millions  from  Egyptian  darkness— was 
kindled  in  his  soul. 

iii.  Yet  a  third  instance.  Nearly  four  centuries  ago, 
there  was,  in  the  University  of  Paris,  a  gay  young  noble- 
maji  of  Navarre,  who  charmed  all  by  his' eloquence  and 
knowledge,  whose  beautiful  face  beamed  with  genius,  and 
whose  bright  temperament  made  him  delight  in  scenes  of 
festivity  and  mirth.  With  him  was  a  stern  Spaniard,  who 
had  been  a  soldier  and  a  student  of  romance ;  but  who, 
having  been  crippled  and  wounded  in  the  siege  of  Pam- 
peluna,  suffered  months  of  toi'ture  and  devoted  himself 
to  spii'itual  warfare.  Wlierever  the  gay  noble  went  the 
Spanish  soldier  limped  after  him ;  and,  whenever  he  was 
flushed  with  enjoyment  and  gratified  vanity,  said  to  him, 
*  Yes !  but  what  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain  the  whole 
world  and  lose  his  own  soul?'  At  last  the  oft-repeated 
words  of  Christ  burnt  themselves  on  the  young  man's 
soul.  '  Ah,  what  would  it  profit  ?  What  is  our  life  ?  Is 
it  not  as  vapour,  so  soon  passeth  it  away,  and  we  are 
gone  ? ' 

And  so  the  gay  young  noble,  disillusioned  of  the  lower 
temptations,  and  brought  to  his  knees,  resolved  not  to  live 
to  the  world,  or  for  pleasure,  but  to  give  his  heart  to  God. 
That  youth  was  Francis  Xa\'ier ;  that  Spanish  soldier  was 
Ignatius  Loyola;  and  in  the  power  of  that  one  text— seiz- 
ing a  heart  which  would  not  make,  as  we  most  of  us  make, 
'the  great  refusal'— lay  the  first  mighty  work  of  modern 
missions  to  the  heathen  in  Ceylon,  in  India,  in  China,  in 
Japan. 

iv.  I  might  give  many  instances  more ;  but  my  last  shall 
be  told  in  the  homely  words  of  a  living  traveller.  '  I  have 
been  in  Africa  seventeen  years,'  he  said  to  a  newspaper 


296  THE  BIBLE 

correspondent.  '  In  1871  I  went  to  Africa  as  prejudiced 
as  the  biggest  atheist  in  London.  But  there  came  for  me 
a  long  time  for  reflection.  I  was  out  there,  away  from  a 
worldly  world.  I  saw  a  solitary  old  man  there,  and  asked, 
"  Why  on  earth  does  he  stop  here  ?  Is  he  cracked,  or  what  ? 
"What  is  it  that  inspires  him  ? "  For  months  after  we  met, 
I  simply  found  myself  listening  to  him,  wondering  at  him, 
as  he  carried  out  all  that  was  said  in  the  Bible :  "  Leave 
all  that  ye  have,  and  follow  me."  But,  little  by  little,  his 
sympathy  became  contagious.  Seeing  his  piety,  his  gen- 
tleness, his  zeal,  his  earnestness,  and  how  quietly  he  did 
his  duty,  I  was  converted  by  him,  though  he  had  not  tried 
to  do  it.' 

Not  long  after,  in  1873,  that  old  man  was  found  dead 
on  his  knees,  by  the  side  of  his  lowly  cot,  in  his  mud  hut, 
in  the  heart  of  Africa,  with  none  but  black  faces  round 
him.  And  the  faithful  blacks,  for  whose  sake  he  had  left 
all  and  succumbed  to  his  endless  hardships,  smeared  his 
corpse  with  pitch,  and  covered  it  with  palm-leaves,  and 
carried  it  on  their  shoulders,  300  miles  to  Zanzibar.  A 
ship  bore  it  to  England,  and  it  was  buried,  amid  the  tears 
of  the  noble  and  the  great,  in  the  nave  of  Westminster 
Abbey.  The  traveller  was  Mr.  H.  M.  Stanley ;  the  aged 
missionary,  whose  life  is  the  pledge  of  future  regeneration 
for  miserable  and  distracted  Africa,  was  David  Living- 
stone. And  though  he  died  and  saw  no  fruit  of  his  la- 
bours, it  is  to  him  and  to  the  text  which  had  grown  so 
luminous  to  him  that  we  owe  the  translation  of  the  BibL' 
since  his  death  into  fourteen  languages  of  Africa,  and  the 
extension  of  the  British  protectorate  over  170,000  square 
miles. 

These  are  avowedly  but  chance  and  casual  examples; 
but  the  instances  are  numberless  in  which  single  texts  have 


DAVID   LIVINGSTONE  297 

thus  become  luminous  and  vivifying  for  individual  souls. 
And  hence  we  may  see  that  the  Bible  is  no  mere  earthly 
volume,  but  resembles  some  great  ocean,  upon  which  the 
Spirit,  '  dovelike,  sits  brooding  o'er  the  vast  abyss ; '  no 
mere  earthly  volume,  but  rather  like  some  great  collection 
of  Sibylline  oracles,  pregnant  with  the  fate  of  nations; 
like  some  field  of  the  bread  of  life,  over  the  billows  of 
whose  golden  grain  pass  the  breathings  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
of  God ;  like  some  magic  palimpsest  '  whose  leaves  are,  as 
it  were,  blown  to  and  fro  by  the  winds  of  destiny.' 

It  will  not  even  be  pretended  that  any  book  in  the  world, 
or  all  the  books  in  the  world  put  together,  have  wrought 
such  vast  and  beneficent  conversions— such  deliverances 
from  darkness  unto  light,  and  from  the  power  of  Satan 
unto  God— as  have  been  and  are  day  by  day  being  ^^^•ought 
by  the  voice  of  God  speaking  to  us  from  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures. Is  not  this  single  fact  sufficient  to  prove  their 
unique  preciousness,  their  transcendent  supremacy  ? 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE   BIBLE   THE   CHIEF   SOURCE   OF   HUMAN   CONSOLATION. 

'Comfort  ye,  comfort  ye  my  people,  saith  your  God.'— Is.  xl.  1. 
'Blessed  are  they  that  mom-u :  for  they  shall  be  comforted.'— 
Matt.  V.  4. 

The  story  is  told  that  some  great  Sultan  once  bade  his 
Grand  Vizier  write  or  compile  a  history  of  the  human 
race.  With  long  toil  the  task  was  accomplished,  and  the 
Grand  Vizier  went  to  the  Sultan  with  fivescore  asses  laden 
with  five  hundi'ed  volumes  of  historic  lore.  *  Abridge ! 
abridge ! '  said  the  alarmed  potentate.  '  Sire/  answered 
the  Vizier,  '  aU  these  volumes  may  be  compressed  into  a 
single  line—"  They  were  born ;  they  suffered ;  they  died." ' 
Without  pressing  to  wTong  and  exaggerated  conclusions 
the  verse  of  Job,  '  Man  is  born  to  trouble,  as  the  sparks 
fly  upwards ; '  ^  without  accepting  this  as  in  any  sense  a 
complete  epitome  of  life ;  maintaining  that  in  human  life 
the  elements  of  natui*al  and  innocent  happiness  do,  or,  but 
for  our  OAvn  fault,  may  preponderate ;  still  pain  and  mis- 
fortune and  mental  anguish  belong  so  completely  to  the 
universal  experience  of  mankind,  that  any  source  whence 
we  may  derive  comfort  either  in  the  form  of  an  immediate 
alleviation  for  misery,  or  of  a  sure  and  certain  hope  of 

1  Job  V.  7. 
298 


THE   BOOK  OF   CONSOLATION  299 

something  which  lies  beyond  this  dark  horizon,  cannot 
but  be  inestimably  precious  to  the  suffering  race  of  man. 
'  The  Persian  king,'  it  has  been  said, '  could  not  find  the 
names  of  even  three  happy  men  to  write  on  his  wife's 
tomb,  or  the  philosopher  would  have  recalled  her  from 
death.  Every  son  of  Adam  has  his  task  to  toU  at,  and 
his  stripes  to  bear  for  doing  it  badly.'  Well  may  the  poet 
exclaim : 

O  purblind  race  of  miserable  men  ! 
How  many  among  us  at  this  very  hour 
Do  forge  a  lifelong  trouble  for  ourselves, 
By  taking  true  for  false,  or  false  for  true ; 
Here,  thro'  the  feeble  t-nilight  of  this  "world 
Groping — how  many — until  we  pass  and  reach 
That  other,  where  we  see  as  we  are  seen !  >• 

I  have  already  quoted  the  unsuspected  testimony  of 
Ernest  Renau,  who  says  that,  after  all,  the  Bible  is  the 
great  Book  of  Consolation  for  Humanit3\  Dwelling  as  I 
am  on  the  matchless  value  of  the  Holy  Book,  it  may  help 
us  to  realise  this  element  of  its  preciousness  if  I  give  some 
instances  to  show  how  it  may  bring  us  peace,  when  no 
other  book  can  lead  us  so  directly  to  the  source  of  peace, 
during  this  '  peevish  April  day '  of  life,  when  so  often  even 
after  the  rain  the  clouds  return. 

'Our  finite  miseries,'  said  Victor  Hugo,  'shrink  into 
nothing  before  the  infinitude  of  hope  ! '  Yes,  that  is  true, 
and  is  an  eminently  Christian  sentiment :  but  hope  for  the 
future  is  not,  when  taken  alone,  sufficient  to  give  us 
blessedness  and  peace  in  the  present.  Yet  that  unbroken 
blessedness  and  peace— like  the  stillness  of  the  inmost 
heart  of  the  ocean,  however  fiercely  the  billows  may  roll 
over  its  storm-swept  surface— is  what  the  true  Christian 

1  Tennyson,  Enid  and  Geraint. 


300  THE  BIBLE 

can  learn  from  the  Book  of  God.  The  consolation  really 
offered  by  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  to  his 
despoiled  and  suffering  brethren  is  not  (as  in  the  erroneous 
and  weakened  reading  of  our  Authorised  Version)  that 
they  had  a  better  and  abiding  substance  in  heaven,  but 
that  they  had  themselves— their  own  ennobled  and  purified 
personality— for  a  possession  better  than  any  which  earth 
could  either  give  or  take  away,  and  abiding.^ 

This  is  strikingly  expressed  in  a  scene  described  in  a 
great  work  of  fiction.  A  faithful  but  humble  enthusiast, 
ragged,  beaten,  crushed,  breathless,  in  peril  of  violent 
death  at  the  hands  of  a  bloodthirsty  and  howling  crowd, 
looks  up  amid  the  glare  of  lanterns,  and  sees  that  he  has 
been  rescued  by  the  exertions  of  a  beautiful  youth  in 
authority,  who  has  kept  back  the  raging  mob.  Next  day, 
while  still  a  prisoner,  he  is  visited  by  this  generous  youth, 
and  says  to  him :  '  Do  you  think  that  when  I  saw  you  last 
night,  in  your  courtier's  dress  of  lace  and  silver,  calm, 
beneficent,  and  powerful  for  good,  you  did  not  seem  to 
my  weak  human  nature  and  my  poor  human  instincts, 
beautiful  as  an  angel  of  light  ?  Truly  you  did.  Yet  I  tell 
you — speaking  by  a  nature  and  in  a  voice  more  unerring 
than  mine— to  the  Divine  Vision,  of  us  two  at  that  moment 
you  were  the  one  to  be  pitied;  you  were  the  outcast,  the 
tortured  of  demons,  the  bound  hand  and  foot,  whose  por- 
tion is  in  this  life,  who,  if  this  fleeting  hour  be  left  un- 
heeded, will  be  tormented  in  the  life  to  come.'  ^ 

Yes  !  Faith  alters  the  perspective,  reverses  the  ap- 
pearances of  life;  it  strips  the  seemingly  happy  of  their 
guise  of  bliss,  and  robes  the  seemingly  naked  in  royal 
apparel.     It  says  in  no  uncertain  voice,  '  Sperate  miseri  j 

1  Heb.  X.  34,  reading  eavroig,  and  omitting  h  ovpavtp. 

2  John  Inglesant. 


ST.  PAUL  301 

cavete  felices ! '  It  transforms  sorrow  into  triumph ;  the 
crown  of  thorns  into  a  crown  of  stars;  the  Cross  into  a 
glory,  and  a  rod  of  power.  It  turns  martyrdom  into 
rapture,  and  malediction  into  a  beatitude.  And  the  secret 
of  these  Divine  transformations  is  best  learnt— is  learnt 
all  but  exclusively— from  Holy  Writ.  Faith  in  facts,  faith 
in  a  Person,  involves  the  secret  of  all  consolation.  They 
who  have  learnt  that  secret  from  the  Bible  have  learnt  the 
true  inner  meaning  of  all  life.  Though  weak  they  are 
strong;  though  destitute  they  are  rich;  having  nothing, 
they  possess  all  things ;  they  are  persecuted,  yet  not  for- 
saken ;  cast  down,  but  not  destroyed.  They  are,  as  Dante 
said :  '  Conteuti  uel  fuoco  '—happy  in  the  very  fire.^ 

1.  The  Scriptures  supply  us  with  many  instances.  Let 
us  take  the  single  case  of  St.  Paul  He  cherished  no  illu- 
sions ;  he  trusted  to  no  chances.  He  did  not,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Isaiah,  prepare  a  table  for  Fortune  and  pour  out 
a  drink-offering  to  Destiny.-  Following  the  footsteps  of 
his  Lord,  ready  to  drink  to  the  dregs  the  cup  of  trembling 
which  his  Father  had  prepared  for  him,  he  walked  with 
open  eyes  to  the  edge  of  the  terrible  abyss  which  yawned 
before  him.  He  was  perfectly  aware  that  in  every  city 
bonds  and  imprisonment  awaited  him.  He  regarded  his 
life  as  a  libation  which  was  to  be  poured  out  upon  the  altar 
of  his  God.^  He  placed  no  reliance  on  the  arctic  tempera- 
ture of  most  human  friendships;  he  had  fathomed  the 
depths  of  human  selfishness ;  he  did  not  complain  that  his 
life  of  love  lost  itself,  like  some  bright  river,  in  the  sands 

»  Dante,  Pnrg.  i.  118. 

«  Is.  Ixv.  11.  Heb. :  Gad,  Meni.  A.V. :  'a  table  for  that  troop 
.  .  .  and  a  drink-offering  unto  that  number.' 

'  2  Tim.  iv.  6 :  '  I  am  already  being  poured  out  as  a  libation.'  A.V. : 
'  I  am  now  ready  to  be  offered.' 


302  THE  BIBLE 

and  marshes  of  hatred,  or  that  the  boundless  self-sacrifice  of 
his  efforts  had  been  cast  into  a  Dead  Sea  of  callousness. 
Did  his  sad  lot  make  him  murmur  against  God  ?  Nay,  he 
would  not  have  changed  his  rags  for  Nero's  purple,  or  his 
fetters  for  Nero's  gems.  In  some  acute  crisis  of  mental 
agony,  he  yet  wrote  to  the  Corinthians  that  God  'com- 
forteth  us  in  all  our  tribulation,  that  we  may  be  able  to 
comfort  them  who  are  in  any  trouble,  by  the  comfort 
where^vith  we  ourselves  are  comforted  of  God.  For  as  the 
sufferings  of  Christ  abound  unto  us,  so  our  comfort  also 
aboundeth  through  Christ.  And  our  hope  for  you  is 
stedf ast ;  knowing  that,  as  ye  are  partakers  of  the  suffer- 
ings, so  also  are  ye  of  the  comfort.'  ^  And  from  his  lonely 
Roman  dungeon,  he  wrote  to  the  Philippians  a  letter 
radiant  with  inward  joy,  in  which  he  has  almost  to  apolo- 
gise for  the  exuberant  iteration  of  his  gladness  when  he 
says,  'Rejoice  in  the  Lord  alway:  again  I  will  say,  Re- 
joice.' 2  And  in  his  last  recorded  words,  his  last  will  and 
testament  so  to  speak— when  he  wrote  to  the  dear  Lycao- 
nian  youth  who  had  shared  the  hardships  of  his  travels— 
though  he  was  about  to  perish,  almost  without  a  friend, 
not  a  murmur,  not  a  sigh  escapes  him,  but  words  of  noblest 
and  calmest  resignation,  of  peace,  and  hope,  and  joy  in 
believing. 

2.  Or  take  the  case  of  the  Martyrs.  They  had  the  same 
feelings  as  other  men.  They  were  of  the  same  flesh  and 
blood  as  we.  '  Whence  came  this  tremendous  spirit  ? '  asks 
Cardinal  Newman ;  '  they  shrank  from  suffering  like  other 
men,  but  such  shrinking  was  incommensurable  with  apos- 
tasy.    No  intensity  of  torture  had  any  means  of  affecting 

1  2  Cor.  i.  4-7.  The  A.  V.  is  much  weakened  by  rendering  the  same 
word  now  'comfort'  and  now  'consolation." 

2  Phil.  iv.  4. 


THE  MARTYBS  303 

what  was  a  mental  conviction ;  and  the  sovereign  thought 
in  which  they  had  lived  was  their  adequate  support  and 
consolation  in  their  death.'  What  enabled  them  to  enter 
the  dark  river  and  its  still  waters  with  a  smile  upon  their 
faces?  "Was  it  not  because  they  had  learnt  from  God's 
promises  that  imderneath  them  were  the  everlasting  arms  ? 
'  1  know  what  is  my  gain/  said  the  martyr  Ignatius ;  '  of 
nothing  visible  or  invisible  am  I  ambitious,  save  to  gain 
Clirist.  Whether  it  is  fire,  or  the  cross,  the  assault  of 
wild  beasts,  the  ^vrenching  of  my  bones,  the  crunching  of 
my  limbs,  the  crushing  of  my  whole  body,  let  the  tortm-es 
of  the  devil  all  assail  me  if  I  do  but  gain  Jesus.' 

3.  The  same  fearless  joy  is  found  even  in  bo5's  and 
tender  women.  They  did  not  quail  before  the  seven-times 
heated  furnace  because  they  knew  that  the  Spirit  of  God 
would  be  with  them  as  '  a  moist  whistling  wind '  amid  the 
flames ;  ^  that  God  would  send  to  them  His  Angel  of  the 
Dew  to  beat  back  the  fiery  surge,  and  that  while  they 
walked  unbound  in  the  midst  of  the  fire  the  form  of  Him 
who  walked  with  them  would  be  the  form  of  the  Son  of 
God.    And  how  soon  would  it  end ! 

Waft  of  soul's  wing!— 

What  lies  above? 
Sunshine  and  Spring, 

Skyblue  and  love ! 

4.  So  we  read  of  ;S^;.  Perpetua :  ' "  Have  pity  on  thy 
babe  !  "  they  cried  to  her.  *'  Have  pity  on  the  white  hairs 
of  thy  father,  and  the  infancy  of  thy  child."  I  replied,  "  I 
will  not."  "  Art  thou  then  a  Christian  ? "  and  I  answered, 
"Yes,  I  am  a  Christian;"  and  as  my  father  would  have 
drawn  me  away,  Hilarianus  ordered  him  to  be  driven  off. 

1  Song  of  the  Three  Children,  27. 


304  THE  BIBLE 

Then  sentence  was  pronounced  and  we  were  condemned 
to  the  beasts,  and  with  hearts  full  of  joy  we  returned  to 
our  prison,'  ^ 

5.  Or  come  down  the  centuries  and  read  of  the  death 
of  Savonarola.  He  suffered— as  welluigh  every  preacher 
of  righteousness  has  had  to  suffer  since  the  days  of  Noah 
and  Isaiah,  and  as  the  Lord  of  Glory  Himself  suffered— in 
a  wickedly  depraved  world  and  a  Church  which  (by  its 
own  confession)  had  fallen  into  deep  corruption.  His 
enemies  hurled  him  from  his  pulpit,  excommunicated  him, 
lied  about  him,  imprisoned  him,  infamously  tortured  him ; 
finally  they  hung  him  in  chains  and  biu'nt  him  in  the  public 
square  at  Florence.  Now  as  Savonarola  lay  in  his  dungeon, 
with  his  cruelly  racked  frame,  his  name  branded  as  that  of 
an  impostor  and  a  traitor,  his  work  apparently  annihilated, 
deserted  by  his  friends,  abandoned  to  his  foes— where  alone 
did  he  find  consolation  ?  Hear  his  own  words.  '  Whatever 
I  see,  whatever  I  hear,'  he  wrote  shortly  before  his  judicial 
murder, '  carries  the  banner  of  sorrow.  The  remembrance 
of  my  friends  saddens  me ;  the  recollection  of  my  sins 
af^cts  me ;  the  consideration  of  my  cloister  and  my  cell 
torments  me ;  the  memory  of  my  studies  pains  me ;  the 
thought  of  my  sins  weighs  me  down— all  things  are  to  me 
turned  to  mourning  and  sorrow.  Who  wiQ  succour  me  ? 
Whither  shall  I  go !  How  shall  I  escape  ?  .  .  .  Hearken  ! 
does  not  the  Prophet  say,  "  Thou,  O  Lord,  art  my  hope ; 
Thou  hast  set  my  house  of  defence  very  high !  " '  And  so— 
with  a  hand  left  undislocated  that  he  might  sign  documents 
full  of  lies  which  were  passed  off  as  his  confessions— he 
turned  to  Scripture  and  occupied  his  last  days  in  writing  a 
comment  upon  the  31st  and  51st  Psalms. 

6.  Who,  again,  has  not  been  touched  as  he  read  the 

1  Acts  of  St.  Perpetua. 


SAVONAROLA.    HUSS  305 

scene  of  the  death  by  fire  of  the  Bohemian  Reformer  JoJin 
Huss  f  In  all  the  infuriated  insults  heaped  upon  him,  in 
all  the  agonies  to  which  he  was  subjected,  the  words  of 
Scripture  were  his  firm  support.  When  they  placed  on 
his  head  the  cap  painted  with  demons,  he  exclaimed, '  Most 
jojiPully  will  I  wear  this  crown  of  shame  for  Thy  sake,  O 
Jesus,  who  for  me  didst  wear  a  crown  of  thorns ; '  and 
during  all  the  preparation  of  the  stake,  and  amid  the  con- 
suming flames,  he  still  cried  repeatedly,  '  Jesus,  Thou  Son 
of  David,  have  mercy  upon  me !  Lord  Jesus,  into  Thy 
hands  I  commend  my  spu'it.' 

7.  Li  1G77  Wigtown  saw  a  deeply  pathetic  spectacle. 
An  elderly  woman  named  Margaret  Lachlan  was  tied  to  a 
stake  in  the  path  of  the  advancing  tide,  as  it  swept  up- 
wards swift  and  strong  in  the  waters  of  the  Bladenoch. 
And  nearer  inland,  that  she  might  witness  the  agonising 
death  struggles  of  the  elder  sufferer,  a  young  girl  of 
twenty,  named  Margaret  Wilsoti,  was  tied  to  another 
stake.  Their  sole  crime  in  the  eyes  of  the  brutal  and 
tyrannous  bigots  who  doomed  them  to  death  was  that 
their  consciences  forbade  them  to  take  a  test  which  they 
regarded  as  wrong ;  and  that  they  had  attended  conven- 
ticles and  field-preachings  to  worship  the  God  of  their 
fathers  in  the  way  which  they  found  most  profitable  to 
their  souls. 

The  rolling  tide  came  up  along  the  sand, 
And  round  and  round  the  sand 
And  o'er  and  o'er  the  sand 
As  far  as  eye  could  see, 

and  poor  Margaret  Lachlan  was  drowned.  Then  they 
unbound  the  girl,  Margaret  Wilson,  that  they  might  tempt 
her  to  apostatise  and  succumb.  But  she  refused  to  give 
way.  She  was  tied  to  the  stake  again.  The  cruel  crawling 
20 


306  THE  BIBLE 

foam  reached  her  feet ;  slowly,  slowly  it  rose  to  her  ankles, 
to  her  knees,  to  her  breast,  to  her  lips.  She  was  face  to 
face  with  the  horror  of  violent  death,  yet  she  would  not 
give  way.  What  sustained  her  f  Clear  and  high  her  voice 
was  heard  singing  the  words  of  the  25th  Psalm— '  Remem- 
ber not  the  sins  of  my  youth,  nor  my  transgi'essions.  Let 
me  not  be  ashamed,  for  I  put  my  trust  in  Thee.' 

8.  Again,  in  1679,  two  Scotchmen  were  executed  on  the 
false  charge  of  complicity  in  the  murder  of  Archbishop 
Sharp,  whom  neither  of  them  had  ever  seen.  They  were 
poor,  uneducated  men,  and  they  walked  side  by  side  to  the 
terrible  scaffold  without  a  tremor  or  a  complaint.  What 
sustained  them  ?  It  was  the  nineteenth  verse  of  the  34th 
Psalm— 'Many  are  the  troubles  of  the  righteous:  but  the 
Lord  delivereth  him  out  of  them  all.'  'God  hath  not 
promised,'  said  one  of  them,  '  to  keep  us  from  trouble,  but 
to  be  with  us  in  it ;  and  what  needs  more  ?  I  bless  the 
Lord  for  keeping  me  to  this  very  hour ;  for  little  would  I 
have  thought  a  twelvemonth  since,  that  the  Lord  would 
have  taken  me,  a  poor  ploughman  lad,  and  have  honoured 
me  so  liighly  as  to  have  made  me  first  appear  for  Him,  and 
now  hath  keeped  me  to  this  very  hour  to  lay  down  my 
life  for  Him.' 

9.  But  there  are  forms  of  slow-consuming  agony  and 
long-continued  horror  which  are  more  terrible  to  bear  in 
every  way  than  the  brief  spasm  of  martyrdom ;  and  even 
under  such  awful  burdens  of  anguish  the  promises  con- 
tained in  the  Scriptures  have  been  found  all-sufficient  to 
support  and  to  console. 

During  the  Indian  Mutiny  in  1857,  not  a  few  of  the 
sufferers  realised  what  a  new  force  came  into  the  words  of 
Scripture  at  the  hour  of  need.  '  A  young  English  baronet. 
Sir  Mountstuart  Jackson,  with  Lieutenant  Burnes,  Mrs. 


CONSOLATION  307 

Orr,  Miss  Jackson,  and  some  little  childi-en  were  trying  to 
escape  from  Seetapore,  and  went  through  sufferings  almost 
unspeakable,  as  they  struggled  forward,  mostly  by  night, 
ragged,  tattered,  iU,  and  with  matted  hair.  The  only 
comfort  which  came  to  them  in  their  tribulation  came 
from  the  Word  of  God.  They  had  no  Bible  among  them, 
but,  one  day,  some  native  medicines  were  brought  to  Mrs. 
Orr  ^vrapped  in  a  piece  of  printed  paper  which  proved  to 
be  part  of  a  leaf  of  the  Book  of  Isaiah.  And  the  message 
which  came  to  them  through  Mohammedan  hands  was 
this :  .  .  .  "  they  shall  obtain  gladness  and  joy ;  and  sorrow 
and  moiu'ning  shall  flee  away.  I,  even  I,  am  He  that  com- 
forteth  you :  who  art  thou,  that  thou  shouldest  be  afraid 
of  a  man  that  shall  die,  and  of  the  son  of  man  which  shall 
be  made  as  grass ;  and  f  orgettest  the  Lord  thy  maker,  .  .  . 
and  hast  feared  continually  every  day  because  of  the  fury 
of  the  oppressor,  as  if  he  were  ready  to  destroy?  and 
where  is  the  fury  of  the  oppressor?  The  captive  exile 
hasteneth  that  he  may  be  loosed,  and  that  he  should  not 
die  in  the  pit,  nor  that  .  .  ."  i— and  there  the  bit  of  paper 
was  torn  off.  But  the  words  of  love  thus  strangely  and 
mysteriously  brought  to  them,  comforted  and  strengthened 
them  in  the  midst  of  their  sorrow.  The  torn  fragment  of 
a  text  which  came  to  them  through  heathen  hands  seemed 
like  a  promise  of  deliverance.'  - 

10.  Can  there  be  abysses  of  misery  deeper  even  than 
this  ?  Yes !  one  of  the  most  tragic  death-scenes  of  which 
I  have  ever  read  was  that  of  Captain  Allen  Fmncis  Gar- 
diner and  his  poor  companions  on  Picton  Island  in  1851. 
They  died  of  slow  starvation.  While  thousands  of  useless 
men  live  in  hard-hearted  self-indulgence,  this  brave  and 
blameless  sailor  was  actuated  by  the  one  burning  desire  to 
1  Is.  li.  11-14.  2  Sir  J.  Kaye,  Sepoy  War,  iii.  488. 


308  THE   BIBLE 

spread  the  truth  of  God  among  the  degraded  heathen  of 
Patagonia  and  Tierra  del  Fuego,  who  are  some  of  the  very 
lowest  of  the  human  race.  Landing  with  one  or  two  com- 
panions on  the  wintry,  storm-swept,  hungry  coast  of  Picton 
Island,  deserted  and  abandoned  by  the  rescue  which  should 
have  come,  these  poor  men  slowly  starved  to  death  in  long- 
continued  agony.  Did  their  faith  fail  under  those  frightful 
circumstances  ?  It  failed  not !  They  continued  in  mutual 
and  jubilant  trust  in  God.  '  Asleep  or  awake,'  wrote  one  of 
them— poor  Richard  Williams— in  liis  diary,  '  I  am  happy 
beyond  the  poor  compass  of  words  to  tell.'  In  August  1851, 
after  weeks  of  ravening  hunger  and  freezing  cold,  Allen 
Gardiner  wrote,  '  God  has  kept  me  in  perfect  peace.'  And 
so,  unmurmuringly  trustful  to  the  last,  they  died  of  hunger, 
and  when  their  bodies  were  found  a  month  afterwards, 
the  captain  and  sailors  who  had  gone  too  late  to  rescue 
them,  cried  like  children;  but  it  was  found  that  Allen 
Gardiner  had  painted  upon  a  rock  beside  the  cavern  in 
which  these  hapless  ones  had  taken  refuge,  a  hand  point- 
ing downwards,  and  underneath  it  the  words,  'My  soul, 
wait  thou  only  upon  God.'  Surely  before  that  royal  throne 
of  unmoved  affliction  kings  might  lay  down  their  crowns, 
and  bow  their  heads  in  humblest  reverence  ! 

11.  And  even  when  death  comes  upon  men  suddenly,  'ter- 
rible and  with  a  tiger's  leaps,'  it  is  in  the  words  of  Scrip- 
ture that  they  find  their  strength  and  hope.  Even  at  such 
awful  moments  they  have  been  enabled  to  exclaim, 
'Though  He  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  Him.' 

In  1863  there  was  a  terrible  earthquake  in  Manilla. 
The  great  cathedral  of  the  city  was  shaken  down  over  the 
heads  of  the  worshippers  assembled  in  it.  Owing  to  some 
pecuharity  of  the  vaulted  roof,  which  for  a  time  upheld  the 
masses  of  superincumbent  ruin,  some  of  the  congregation 


FEAR  OF   DEATH  309 

were  not  immediately  killed,  though  they  were  maimed 
and  terrified.  But  tlie  rescue  of  the  survivors  was  at  once 
seen  to  be  hopeless.  To  touch  the  ruins  was  to  bury  them 
alive.  A  throng  of  people  was  assembled  outside  the 
walls,  and  they  distinctly  heard  the  voices  of  the  doomed 
multitude  within.  A  low,  deep,  bass  voice,  doubtless  that 
of  the  pi'iest,  was  heard  within,  uttering  the  words, 
'  Blessed  are  the  dead  that  die  in  the  Lord ; '  at  which  the 
hearers  burst  into  a  passion  of  sobs,  for  deep  groans  were 
wrung  from  the  speaker  by  some  intense  pain.  But, 
immediately  afterwards,  the  same  voice  spoke  to  those 
who  were  thus  in  the  very  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death. 
It  spoke  in  a  calm  and  even  tone,  and  the  listeners  outside 
distinctly  hoard  the  words,  'The  Lord  Himself  shall  de- 
scend from  Heaven  with  a  shout  .  .  and  the  dead  in 
Christ  shall  rise  first.' 

12.  In  the  Civil  War  between  the  Northern  and  Southern 
States  of  America,  after  one  of  those  disastrous  battles, 
they  found  the  body  of  a  poor  Southern  soldier.  He  was 
a  youth,  and  he  had  been  shot  on  the  field ;  but  as  he  lay 
there  with  the  life-blood  ebbing  from  his  wounds,  he  had 
drawn  out  his  Bible  and  it  was  found  in  his  dead  hands, 
and  the  riirid  fingers  were  still  pressed  upon  the  words, 
*  Yea,  though  I  walk  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of 
death  I  will  fear  no  evil.  For  Thou  art  vnth  me.  Thy 
rod  and  Thy  staff  they  comfort  me.' 

'  What  a  historj'  a  collection  of  Bibles  would  give  us,' 
says  the  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  'if  we  could  only  have 
it !  One  would  represent  to  us  the  sigh  from  a  penitent, 
and  one  the  song  from  a  saint,  and  one  would  have  its 
story  of  strength  for  some  one  who  was  tempted,  and 
through  one  Christ's  heart  of  fire  melted  the  icicles  round 
some  heart  of  ice.' 


CHAPTER  XXI 

SPECIAL   CONSOLATIONS   OF   SCRIPTIIRE. 

'That  through  patience  and  comfort  of  the  Scriptures  we  might 
have  hope.'— Rom.  xv.  4. 

'  I  see  that  the  Bible  fits  into  every  fold  and  crevice  of  the  human 
heart.  I  am  a  man,  and  I  believe  that  this  is  God's  book  because  it 
is  man's  book.'— Hallam. 

Martyrdom  and  the  accmnulations  of  overwhelming 
tragedy  only  befall  the  few ;  but  many  forms  of  sorrow 
—  'bitter  arrows  from  the  gentle  hands  of  God'— strike 
the  lives  of  every  one  of  us.  Shakespeare,  in  his  all- 
observing  genius,  has  twice  enumerated  some  of  them. 
Thus  in  '  Hamlet  ^  he  says, 

There's  the  respect 
That  makes  calamity  of  so  long  life  ; 
For  who  would  bear  the  whips  and  scorns  of  time, 
The  oppressor's  wrong,  the  proud  man's  contumely, 
The  pangs  of  despised  love,  the  law's  delay, 
The  insolence  of  office,  and  the  spurns 
That  patient  merit  of  the  unworthy  takes, 
When  he  himself  might  his  quietus  make 
With  a  bare  bodkin?  who  would  these  fardels  bear, 
To  grunt  and  sweat  under  a  weary  life. 
But  that  the  dread  of  something  after  death, 
The  undiscovered  country  from  whose  bourn 
No  traveller  returns,  puzzles  the  will, 
310 


BEREAVEMENT  311 

And  makes  us  rather  bear  those  ills  we  have 
Than  fly  to  others  that  we  know  not  of  T 

And  in  his  famous  sonnet  he  sings, 

Tired  of  all  these,  for  restful  death  I  cry;— 

As  to  behold  desert  a  beggar  bom, 

And  needy  nothing  trimm'd  in  jollity, 

And  purest  faith  unhappily  forsworn. 

And  gilded  honour  shamefully  misplaced, 

And  maiden  virtue  rudely  strumpeted, 

And  right  perfection  wrongfully  disgraced, 

And  strength  by  limping  sway  disabled. 

And  art  made  tongue-tied  by  authority, 

And  folly  (doctor-like)  controlling  skill, 

And  simple  truth  miscalled  simplicity. 

And  captive  good  attending  captain  ill : 

Tired  with  all  these,  from  these  would  I  be  gone. 

Let  lis  then  glance  at  some  of  the  commonest  forms  of 
human  sorrow,  and  note  how  in  their  extreme  incidence 
men  have  learnt  best  how  to  bear  them  by  calling  to  mind 
the  promises  of  Holy  Writ.  Some  of  these  manifold  sor- 
rows are  occasional;  some  continuous.  Some  are  excep- 
tional, others  universal :  but  for  aU  alike— both  for  those 
which  are  overwhelming  in  their  permanence  and  almost 
inconceivable  in  their  intensity,  and  for  those  which, 
though  less  acute,  benumb  and  paralyse  our  souls  as  with 
the  touch  of  a  torpedo— there  is  bahn  in  the  Gilead  of 
Scripture  and  there  is  a  physician  there.  To  the  anodynes 
which  God  there  prescribes  for  us,  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  an  incurable  disease. 

1 .  Take  the  universal,  inevitable  sorrow  of  bereavement. 
In  that  dark  hour,  what  consolation  can  be  distinctly 
compared  to  those  which  we  derive  from  the  words  of 
Scripture  read  in  the  light  of  Christ's  Resurrection  ?    We 


312  THE  BIBLE 

remember  that  our  beloved  ones  have  but  entered  a  valley 
which,  if  it  be  dark,  has  yet  been  illuminated  by  Christ's 
footsteps;  and  over  their  gi-aves  we  proclaim,  in  the 
thought  of  His  victory, '  Thy  dead  men  shall  live ;  together 
with  my  dead  body  shall  they  arise !  Awake,  and  sing  ye 
that  dwell  in  the  dust,  for  thy  dew  is  as  the  dew  of  herbs, 
and  the  earth  shall  disclose  her  dead.'  We  remember  that 
it  is  God  who  giveth  His  beloved  sleep,  'I  saw,'  says 
George  Fox,  'that  there  was  an  ocean  of  darkness  and 
death;  but  an  infinite  ocean  of  Light  and  Love  flowed 
over  the  ocean  of  Darkness :  and  in  that  I  saw  the  infinite 
love  of  God.' 

Aaron,  when  his  two  sons  were  stricken  with  death— 
Ezekiel,  when  the  delight  of  his  eyes  was  taken  from  him 
at  a  stroke— bowed  their  heads  and  held  their  peace. 
When  the  boy  of  the  Lady  of  Shunem  lay  dead  in  the 
upper  chamber  of  her  home,  she  was  met  by  Gehazi  with 
the  questions,  '  Is  it  well  with  thee  ?  Is  it  well  with  thy 
husband  ?  Is  it  well  with  the  child  ? '  Ah !  her  heart  was 
breaking,  and  her  husband's  heart  was  very  sore,  and  the 
dear  Kttle  lad,  her  only  son,  lay  dead  in  the  Prophet's 
chamber :  yet  she  would  not  let  her  voice  break  with  sobs 
as  she  answered, '  It  is  well ! '  Not  a  few  parents,  crushed 
in  their  deep  sorrow  by  such  a  narrative  as  this,  have 
carved  upon  the  tombs  of  their  dead  sons  the  words,  'Is 
it  weU  with  the  child  ?    It  is  well ! ' 

2.  Again,  there  are  few  who  escape  aU  through  life  the 
wearing  pain  of  severe  sickness,  and  the  depression  which 
accompanies  it.  Do  not  Christian  sufferers  again  and 
again  find  comfort  in  the  verse,  '  Thou  shalt  make  all  his 
bed  in  his  sickness '  f  Can  there  be  a  malady  more  hope- 
lessly loathsome  than  leprosy  ?  There  is  one  of  the  Sand- 
wich Islands,  called  Molokai,  which  is  consigned  exclusively 


SICKNESS  AND   POVERTY  313 

to  lepers,  and  more  than  800  lepers  are  Imng  there.  The 
sun  rises  on  no  more  distressful  and  revolting  scene  of 
human  abjeetness  and  misery.  And  yet  the  young  Belgian 
priest,  Father  Damien,  voluntarily  offered  himself  in  1873 
to  serve  in  that  island,  among  its  horde  of  hapless  and 
hopeless  lepers,  with  the  practical  certainty  that  he  would 
himself  succumb  to  that  obliterating  horror.  There  for 
thirteen  years  he  continued  to  be  the  doctor,  nurse,  magis- 
trate, teacher,  carpenter,  gardener,  cook,  sometimes  even 
the  grave-digger  of  those  awfully  afflicted  wrecks  of  hu- 
manity. At  last  he  contracted  the  foul  disease,  and  died 
of  it.  Hear  his  own  touching  words :  '  I  am  now  the  only 
priest  in  Molokai.  Impossible  for  me  to  go  any  more  to 
Honolulu,  on  account  of  the  leprosy  breaking  out  upon 
me.  Having  no  doubt  of  the  true  character  of  my  disease, 
I  feel  calm,  resigned,  and  happier  among  my  own  people. 
Almighty  God  knows  what  is  best  for  my  own  sanctifica- 
tion,  and  with  that  conviction  I  say  daily,  "  Thy  will  be 
done."  Please  pray  for  your  afflicted  friend,  and  recom- 
mend me  and  my  unhappy  people  to  all  servants  of  the 
Lord.' 

3.  Or  take  the  common  case  of  pecuniary  anxiety  and 
care  for  the  means  of  sustenance.  How  many  a  father  of 
a  family,  full  of  misgiving  for  his  children,  feels  this  care 
constantly  flapping  its  •wangs  about  him  in  the  pauses  of 
the  day  and  the  silent  watches  of  the  night  ?  How  many 
a  young  man  feels  with  a  sense  of  anguish  that  he  has  '  no 
prospects ; '  that  he  cannot  make  his  way ;  that  he  will 
never  be  able  with  honour  or  prudence  to  marry  or  make 
himself  a  home.  'I  shall  be  chained,'  he  says,  'to  dust 
and  deskwork,  a  miserable  drudge,  for  all  the  dreary  to- 
morrows which  shall  be  no  better  than  the  dreary  yester- 
days.'   What  remedy  is  there  but  faith  in  the  promises  of 


314  THE   BIBLE 

God  ?  If  he  be  honest,  upright,  temperate,  strenuous,  he 
will  yet  live  to  say,  'I  have  been  young,  and  now  am  old, 
yet  never  saw  I  the  righteous  forsaken,  nor  his  seed  beg- 
ging their  bread.'  He  learns  to  trust  Him  without  whom 
not  even  the  little  brown  sparrow  falleth  to  the  ground, 
and  to  cast  all  his  care  upon  God,  because  God  careth  for 
him. 

4.  Again,  how  many  suffer  for  long  years  from  the 
gnawings  of  the  viper's  tooth  of  envy ;  how  many,  all  then* 
lives  long,  are  the  victims  of  hatred,  malice,  calumny, 
slander,  and  all  uncharitableness.  Yes,  for  there  are  mul- 
titudes of  men  through  whom  '  misunderstanding  of  every- 
thing passes  like  the  mudcast  of  the  earthworm.'  Those 
are  specially  liable  to  suffer  thus  who  always  speak  the 
truth  and  boldly  rebuke  vice,  and  those  also  who  rise  ever 
so  little  above  their  fellow-men. 

Every  age  on  him  who  strays 
From  its  broad  and  beaten  ways 
Pours  its  sevenfold  vial.i 

In  such  hours  is  it  no  comfort  to  the  Christian  to  recall 
his  Lord's  words,  'Blessed  are  ye  when  men  shall  revile 
you,  and  persecute  you,  and  shall  say  all  manner  of  evil 
against  you  falsely,  for  My  sake.  Rejoice,  and  be  exceed- 
ing glad :  for  great  is  your  reward  in  heaven :  for  so  per- 
secuted they  the  prophets  which  were  before  you ; '  and 
'  If  they  have  called  the  master  of  the  house  Beelzebub, 
how  much  more  them  of  his  household  ? '  How  can  the 
servant  escape  when  the  sinless  Master  was  described  by 
priests  as  a  deceiver  and  a  blasphemer,  and  by  Pharisees 
as  a  gluttonous  man  and  a  winebibber,  a  Samaritan,  a 
traitor,  a  demoniac?     How  many  of  God's  best  saints 

1  J.  G.  Whittier,  Barclay  of  Ury. 


CALUMNY  315 

have  shared  the  lot  of  their  Lord?  St.  Athanasius  was 
accused  of  magic  and  murder ;  St.  Jerome  of  impurity ;  St. 
Gregory  of  Nyssa  of  base  embezzlement ;  St.  Chrysostom 
of  gluttony,  fraud,  and  hypocrisy ;  St.  Basil  of  heresy  and 
treason ;  Luther  of  everj'  kind  of  crime ;  Richard  Hooker 
of  adultery;  St.  Vincent  de  Paul  of  theft.  Milton  was 
called  a  venomous  serpent  and  a  foul-mouthed  Zoilus; 
William  the  Silent  was  accused  of  having  murdered  his 
own  wife.    As  for  the  saintly  Whitfield,  he 

Stood  pilloried  on  Infamy's  high  stage 
And  bore  the  pelting  scorn  of  half  an  age. 
The  man  who  mentioned  him  at  once  dismissed 
All  mercy  from  his  lips,  and  sneered  and  hissed : 
His  crimes  were  such  as  Sodom  never  knew, 
And  Perjury  stood  up  to  swear  all  true. 

They  could  bear  this,  as  all  good  men  can  bear  it,  because 
they  believe  in  the  day  when  Christ's  Ite  or  Venite  shall 
decide  all  judgments  and  all  controversies  for  ever.  They 
calmly  commit  their  way  unto  the  Lord,  and  are  content 
to  feel  that,  according  to  His  warning,  to  be  near  Him  in 
this  life  is  to  be  near  the  fire  and  near  the  sword.^ 

5.  And  it  is  no  very  uncommon  case  for  men  to  lose 
their  all.  In  1830  the  ship  which  was  taking  to  India  the 
excellent  missionary  Dr.  Duff  was  wrecked  in  the  breakers 
on  the  desolate  shore  of  a  little  island.  The  crew  escaped 
in  small  boats  with  nothing  but  their  lives.  A  sailor  saw 
something  lying  on  the  shore,  and  picking  it  up  found 
that  it  was  a  small  Bible  of  Dr.  Duff's,  the  sole  book  left 
of  800  volumes  which  he  was  taking  out  with  him.  Dr. 
Duff,  undismayed  at  the  loss  of  all  he  possessed,  knelt 
down  on  the  white  surf-beaten  sand  with  the  forlorn  sur- 
1  Quoted  by  Origen,  Horn,  in  Jerem.  ill.  778. 


316  THE  BIBLE 

vivors  of  the  wreck,  and  their  hearts  burned  with  fresh 
hope  within  them,  as  he  read  to  them  the  four  deliverances 
of  the  107th  Psalm,  ending  with  the  words, '  Whoso  is  wise 
will  ponder  these  things,  and  they  shall  understand  the 
loving  kindness  of  the  Lord.' 

6.  Sometimes,  too,  personal  ruin  is  the  accompaniment 
of  overwhelming  national  disaster.  It  was  so  when  after 
the  fearful  defeat  of  Jena  in  1806  Prussia  went  down  be- 
fore the  cruel  and  reckless  ambition  of  Napoleon.  On  no 
heart  did  the  throe  of  a  nation's  anguish  fall  with  more 
agonising  incidence  than  upon  the  young  and  beautiful 
Queen  Louise.  It  meant  the  utter  ruin  of  all  her  hopes. 
When  she  heard  the  news,  she  burst  into  uncontrollable 
weeping.  How  did  she  calm  her  anguish?  It  was  the 
pious  custom  in  Germany  when  a  pupil  left  the  school,  to 
accompany  him,  singing  the  37th  Psalm— '  Fret  not  thyself 
because  of  evil-doers'— of  which  the  fifth  verse  is,  'Com- 
mit thy  way  unto  the  Lord;  trust  also  in  Him,  and  He 
shall  bring  it  to  pass.'  The  young  Queen  sat  down  to  her 
piano,  and  softly  sang  the  Psalm.  When  she  rose,  we  are 
told  her  eye  was  clear,  her  spirits  tranquil.  That  same 
verse  was  the  constant  comfort  of  David  Livingstone  also, 
during  all  his  perils  and  fevers  and  hungry  wanderings  in 
scorching  Africa  and  its  desert  wastes. 

7.  There  is  one  very  terrible  form  of  agony  which 
affects  some  of  the  noblest  souls :  it  is  the  sense  of  Sin, 
which  sometimes  drives  men  into  deep  religious  despon- 
dency. 

Let  us  take  the  case  of  John  Bumjan. 

'  One  morning  when  I  was  again  at  prayer,  and  trem- 
bling under  the  fear  that  no  word  of  God  could  help  me, 
that  piece  of  a  sentence  darted  into  my  mind,  "  My  grace 


DESPONDENCY  317 

is  sufficient."  At  this  methought  I  felt  some  stay  as  though 
there  might  be  hopes.  But  oh  how  good  a  thing  it  is  for 
God  to  send  His  Word !  For  about  a  fortnight  before  I 
was  looking  at  this  very  place,  and  then  I  thought  it  could 
not  come  near  my  soul  with  comfort;  therefore  I  threw 
down  the  book  in  a  pet.  Then  I  thought  it  was  not  large 
enough  for  me ;  no,  not  large  enough ;  but  now  it  was  as 
if  it  had  arms  of  grace  so  wide  that  it  could  not  only 
enclose  me,  but  many  more  besides,  and  one  day  as  I  was 
in  a  meeting  of  God's  people,  full  of  sadness  and  terror— 
for  my  fears  again  were  strong  upon  me— these  words  did 
suddenly  with  great  power  break  in  upon  me,  "  My  gi*ace 
is  sufficient  for  thee  !  "  (three  times  together) ;  and  oh  me- 
thought that  every  word  was  a  mighty  word  unto  me,  as 
"My"  and  "grace"  and  "sufficient"  and  "for  thee."  At 
which  time  my  understanding  was  so  enlightened  that  I 
was  as  though  I  had  seen  the  Lord  Jesus  look  down  from 
heaven  through  the  tiles  upon  me,  and  direct  these  words 
unto  me.  This  sent  me  mourning  home.  It  broke  my 
heart  and  filled  me  full  of  joy,  and  laid  me  low  in  the 
dust.'  1 

*  Search  the  Scriptm*es,'  says  an  old  bishop,  '  and  say  if 
things  ran  not  thus  as  their  ordinary  course.  God  com- 
mandeth  and  man  disobeyeth.  Man  disobeyeth  and  God 
threateneth.  God  tlireateneth  and  man  repenteth.  Man 
repenteth  and  God  forgiveth.  "  Abimelech  !  thou  art  but 
a  dead  man,  because  of  Sarah  whom  thou  hast  taken ; " 
but  Abimelech  restoreth  the  Prophet  his  wife,  and  God 
spareth  him,  and  he  dieth  not.  "  Hezekiah !  put  thine 
house  in  order,  for  thou  shalt  die  and  not  live ;  "  but  Heze- 
kiah turneth  his  face  to  the  wall,  and  prayeth  and  weepeth, 

1  Bunyan,  Grace  Abounding,  pp.  206,  207. 


318  THE   BIBLE 

and  God  addeth  to  his  days  fifteen  years.  "Nineveli! 
prepare  for  desolation ;  for  now  but  forty  days  and  Nine- 
veh shall  be  destroyed !  "  but  Nineveh  fasted  and  prayed 
and  repented,  and  Nineveh  stood  for  more  than  forty 
years  twice  told.  To  show  compassion  and  to  forgive  is 
the  thing  in  which  God  most  of  all  delighteth,  but  to 
punish  and  to  take  vengeance  is  (as  some  explain  that 
passage  in  Isaiah)  "  His  strange  work,"  a  thing  He  taketh. 
no  pleasure  in.  As  the  bee  laboureth  busily  all  the  day 
long,  and  seeketh  to  every  flower  and  ever}-  weed  for 
honej^,  but  stingeth  not  once  unless  she  be  ill  i3rovoked; 
so  God  bestirreth  Himself,  and  He  yearns  to  show  com- 
passion. Vengeance  cometh  on  slowly  and  unwillingly, 
and  draweth  a  sigh  from  Him.  "  Ah !  I  must— I  see  there 
is  no  remedy— I  must  ease  Me  of  Mine  adversaries.  Yet 
how  shall  I  give  thee  up,  O  Ephraim?  Is  Ephraim  My 
dear  son  1  Is  he  a  pleasant  child  ?  for  since  I  spake  against 
him,  I  do  earnestly  remember  him  stiU:  therefore  My 
heart  is  troubled  for  him ;  I  will  surely  have  mercy  upon 
him,  saith  the  Lord."  Consider  this,  and  take  comfort, 
all  ye  that  mourn  in  Zion,  and  gi'oan  under  the  weight  of 
God's  heavy  displeasure.  Wliy  do  ye  spend  your  strength 
and  spirit  in  gazing  altogether  with  broad  eyes  on  God's 
justice  ?  Take  them  oif  a  little  and  refresh  them  by  fas- 
tening  them  another  while  on  His  mercy.  Consider  not 
only  what  He  threateneth,  but  wliy  He  threateneth.  It  is 
unless  you  repent.  He  threateneth  to  cast  down  indeed, 
but  into  humiliation,  not  into  despair.  He  shooteth  out 
His  arrow,  but  as  Jonathan's  arrow  for  warning,  not  for 
destruction.  "Yea,  but  who  am  I,"  will  some  disconso- 
late soul  say,  "  that  I  should  make  God's  threatening  void  ? 
or  what  my  repentance  that  it  should  cancel  the  oracles 
of  truth?"    Poor  and  distressed  soul  that  thus  disputest 


COMFORT  TO  THE   SOUL  319 

against  thine  own  peace,  but  seest  not  the  while  the  un- 
fathomed  depths  of  God's  mercy,  and  the  wonderful  dis- 
pensations of  His  truth ! ' 

Can  it  be  true  the  grace  He  is  declaring  T 
O  let  us  trust  Him,  for  His  words  are  fair  I 

Man,  what  is  this!  and  why  art  thou  despairingt 
God  shall  forgive  thee  all  but  thy  despair ! 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  NATIONS. 

'  So  shall  my  word  be  that  goeth  forth  out  of  my  mouth :  it  shall  not 
return  unto  me  void,  but  it  shall  accomplish  that  which  I  please,  and 
it  shaU  prosper  in  the  thing  whereto  I  sent  it.'— Is.  Iv.  11. 
'  Upon  the  onely  Scripture  doth  our  Church  Foimdation  lay, 
Let  Patriarchs,  Prophets,  Gospels,  and  the  Apostles  for  us  say : 
For  soul  and  body  we  affirm  are  aU-sufficient  they.' 

Warner,  Albion's  England,  ix.  32. 

I  SHOWED  in  the  last  chapters  that  the  separate  phrases  of 
Scripture  have  been,  as  it  were,  blazoned  in  letters  of  gold 
upon  the  souls  of  individuals.  They  have  been  no  less 
mighty  in  their  power  to  sway  the  destiny  of  entire  nations. 
In  the  Bible,  more  clearly  than  from  any  other  source, 
men  have  heard  'the  voice  of  God  sounding  across  the 
centuries  the  eternal  distinctions  of  right  and  '^\Tong'— for 
it  was  tu  the  Bible  that  the  voice  of  God  taught  us  three 
thousand  years  ago  that '  Righteousness  exalteth  a  nation, 
but  Sin  is  the  reproach  of  any  people.' 

'  No  Book  has  been  so  often  printed  as  the  Bible.  No 
fewer  than  1,326  editions  were  published  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  Down  to  1896  the  British  Bible  Society  printed 
no  fewer  than  147,366,660  copies  of  the  Scriptures,  and  the 
American  61,705,000.  The  British  Society  issues  4,000,- 
000  copies  yearly,  and  the  American  1,750,000.' 

320 


THE   NATIONS.    THE  JEWS  321 

The  Bible  has  been  the  guide,  the  inspii-ation,  the  en- 
noblement, the  statesman's  manual  of  the  greatest  nations 
in  the  world. 

1.  The  Old  Testament  is  the  Bible  of  the  Jews  ;  and  see 
what  it  did  for  them  !  It  enshrined  the  code  of  their  great 
lawgiver ;  it  preserved  the  burning  words  of  theii*  mighty 
prophets ;  it  presented  them  with  a  history  prolific  in  heroic 
examples;  it  gave  them  a  hai'p,  which,  soft  as  Memnon's 
at  morning,  furnished  their  worship  with  golden  canticles, 
and  throbbed  with  every  spontaneous  emotion  of  then*  joy 
and  theii*  despair.  And  what  else  has  preserved  their 
immemorial  continuity  as  the  most  imperishable  of  the 
nations  of  the  world  ?  Why  have  revolutions  thundered 
in  vain  over  their  heads?  Judi^a  saw  many  a  mighty 
empire  rise  and  fall ;  she  was  herself  but  a  petty  kingdom, 
hardly  more  extensive,  and  not  nearly  so  populous,  as 
many  an  English  county.  The  hosts  of  Assp-ia  trampled 
her  into  the  mire  ;  Babylonia  swept  her  into  hopeless  exile ; 
Persia  imprisoned  her  in  the  ii'on  network  of  her  cruel 
satrapies ;  the  kings  of  Syria  and  Egypt  made  her  the  foot- 
ball of  their  fierce  contentions ;  Republican  Rome  put  her 
under  a  procurator  who  was  the  son  of  a  slave ;  Imperial 
Rome  burnt  her  to  ashes  and  reared  a  temple  to  Venus  on 
the  platform  of  the  re\'ived  shrine  of  God.  The  nations 
of  Europe,  •v\'ith  their  Torquemadas  and  Borgias  and 
devilish  Inquisitions,  in  Italy  and  England,  and  miserable 
Spain,  tortured  and  insulted  her.  The  MosUm  have  held 
her  land  and  city  for  twelve  centuries  and  a  half  under 
theii'  effete  aud  somnolent  despotism— but  where  are  her 
enemies  T 

'  Assyria,  Greece,  Rome.  Carthage,  where  are  they  ? ' 
'They  ai"e  dead;  they  shall  not  live;  they  are  deceased, 
they  shall  not  rise.'  Even  brilliant  Greece,  with  her 
21 


322  THE   BIBLE 

poetry  and  her  art  and  her  science,  perished  of  her  own 
hists.  Even  Imperial  Rome,  with  her  legions  and  her 
luxui'ies,  sickened  of  imported  corruption.  But  because 
Israel  had  her  Bible,  and  clung  to  it— because,  amid  all 
her  miserable  failings,  she  was  '  the  lifter  up  to  the  nations 
of  the  banner  of  righteousness  '—they  have  perished,  and 
she  remaineth.  The  word  of  the  Lord,  given  to  her  in  her 
Scriptures,  has  been  fulfilled  to  her  in  the  letter,  'Fear 
not,  thou  worm  Jacob,  and  thou  handful  Israel.  I  will 
help  thee,  saith  the  Eternal.  Behold,  I  have  graven  thee 
upon  the  palms  of  My  hands ! ' 

2.  Again,  when  the  civilisation  of  the  older  world  was 
perishing  with  the  dry  rot  of  luxury,  sensuality,  and 
greed ;  when  it  had  poisoned  all  the  wholesome  air  of  the 
world;  when 

Eome,  whom  mightiest  kingdoms  curtsied  to, 
Like  a  forlorn  and  desperate  castaway, 
Did  shameful  execution  on  herself ; 

then  God  poured  into  the  effete  veins  of  the  empire  the 
purer  blood  of  the  Northern  nations.  What  saved  Eui-ope 
in  that  day  under  the  Providence  of  God  ?  The  Goths— 
the  noblest  of  all  the  barbarian  invaders,  a  strong  manly 
race,  taU  of  statui*e,  of  bright  complexion,  blue  eyes  and 
fair  hail'- had  among  them  a  little  captive  Cappadocian 
boy.  They  called  him  Wulfila— 'the  little  wolf.'  They 
aU  loved  him,  and  said  that  he  was  so  good  that  he  coidd 
do  no  wi'ong.  Gloriously  did  he  repay  their  affection! 
When  he  grew  up  he  invented  a  Gothic  alphabet  and 
characters,  and  translated  for  them  almost  the  whole  Bible 
into  Gothic.  A  single  precious  copy  of  that  translation, 
written  in  silver  letters  on  purple  vellum,  which  still  exists 
at  Upsala  in  Sweden,  is  the  sole  surviving  monument  of 
the  people  and  their  language !     It  was  the  means  of 


GERMANY  AND  ENGLAND      323 

converting  them  to  Christianity;  and  their  conversion 
saved  the  Christian  fortunes  of  the  world,  when  Alaric 
and  his  Goths,  humanised  and  ennobled  by  the  oracles  of 
God,  burst  into  the  burning  streets  of  Rome  and  bowed 
her  glories  to  the  dust. 

3.  I  might  speak  of  Oermany—ov^ing  her  freedom,  her 
manliness,  her  supremacy,  her  piu-e  and  wholesome  home- 
life  to  that  Bible  which  Martin  Luther  found  in  the 
monastery  of  Erfurt,  which  in  the  bright  and  blissful 
Reformation,  translated  by  Luther  for  the  German  people, 
emancipated  Germany  from  the  yoke  of  priestcraft.  All 
the  power  of  the  German  language,  and  all  the  greatest 
literature  of  the  German  nation,  and  all  its  foremost  men, 
and  all  its  most  imperial  progress,  date  from  its  possession 
of  the  Book  of  God.' 

4.  But  turn  to  our  own  beloved  England.  Before  the 
Reformation  Wycliffe  had  endeavoured  to  put  the  English 
Bible  into  the  hands  of  the  people.  'O  Christ,'  he  ex- 
claimed, '  Thy  Law  is  hidden  in  the  sepulchre ;  when  wilt 
Thou  send  Thine  angel  to  remove  the  stone,  and  show 
Thy  truth  unto  Thy  flock?'  Wycliffe,  strange  to  say, 
died  in  his  bed,  and  not  on  the  rack  or  at  the  stake.  But 
the  English  Bible,  condemned  in  1408  by  Archbishop 
Arundel,  was  to  all  intents  and  pui'poses  suppressed ;  and 
Pope  Martin  V.  ordered  the  exhumed  remains  of  this  saint 
of  God  to  be  burnt  and  flung  into  the  Swift.  Yet  God's 
word  did  not  return  unto  Him  void. 

In  the  Netherlands,  an  Emperor  who  lived  in  adultery 

*  Gcsprachc  mit  Goethe,  iii.  256.  To  this  fact  Goethe  is  an  unex- 
ceptionable witness.  '""Wirwissen  gar  nicht,"fuhr Goethe  fort,  "was 
wir  Luthem  und  der  Reformation  im  allgemeinen  alles  zu  danken 
haben.  "Wir  sind  frei  geworden  von  den  Fesseln  geistiger  Bornirtheit, 
wir  sind  infolge  unserer  fortwachsenden  Cultm*  fiihig  geworden,  zur 
Quelle  zuriick  zukehren  und  das  Christenthum  in  seiner  Keinheit  zu 
fassen."' 


V 


324  THE  BIBLE 

and  was  steeped  in  lies,  burned  and  massacred  his  subjects 
if  they  sung  the  Psahns  in  their  own  tongue ;  and  in  Eng- 
land, even  under  Henry  VIII.,  it  was  a  crime  punishable 
with  death  to  read  the  Bible  in  a  language  which  they 
understood.  It  was  for  the  crime  of  translating  the  Bible 
into  the  vernacular  that  one  of  the  purest  and  noblest  of 
Englishmen,  William  Tyndale,  whose  version  is  the  chief 
element  in  our  Authorised  Version,  was  imprisoned, 
strangled,  and  burnt  in  1536.  His  last  words  before  he 
died  were,  'O  Lord,  open  the  King  of  England's  eyes.' 
That  prayer  was  answered.  The  very  next  year  Henry 
VIII,  permitted  Cranmer  to  cii'culate  the  Bible  in  English. 
Thenceforward  England  became  more  and  more  the  people 
of  one  book.  The  influence  exercised  by  the  open  Bible 
was  prodigious.  An  Italian  writer,  Signor  Zumbini,  says 
it  was  due  to  ^  the  most  complete  assimilation  ever  made 
by  individual  or  people  of  a  series  of  ideas  and  concep- 
tions not  their  own.'^  Manhood  springing  up  in  its 
untrammelled  nobleness,  deepened  in  disemprisoned  hu- 
man souls,  the  sense  of  personal  duty  which  will  no 
longer  be  content  with  functional  and  vicarious  religion. 
'In  the  days  of  the  father  of  Elizabeth,'  wrote  a  Romish 
priest, '  the  whole  kingdom  was  content  to  take  its  beliefs 
from  a  tjrrant's  word :  now  boys  and  women  boldly  refuse 
to  make  the  slightest  concession  even  at  the  threat  of 
death.'  That  was  the  heroic  England  which  shattered  the 
Invincible  Armada;  that  was  the  England  of  Drake,  of 
Bacon,  of  Hooker,  of  Shakespeare,  of  Sydney,  of  Raleigh, 
and  of  Spenser;  that  was  the  England  which  under  the 
freshly  applied  goad  of  civil  and  ecclesiastical  oppression 

1  Zumbini,  Saggi  Critici  (Morano,  1876) :  'The  constant  reading  of 
the  Bible  in  public  and  in  private  has  contributed  to  a  unity  of  the 
language,  alike  in  time  and  in  use,  by  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.' 


/ 


AMERICA  325 

awoke  the  burning  righteousness  of  Puritanism,  shattered 
the  tyranny  of  the  Stuarts,  suppressed  the  odious  Star 
Cliamber,  sent  its  soldiers  to  battle  with  Bibles  in  their 
knapsacks,  and  made  the  Pope  cease  to  roll  God's  slaugh- 
tered saints  down  the  rocks  of  Piedmont  lest  Cromwell 
'  should  make  the  guns  of  England  heard  in  the  Castle  of 
St.  Angelo.' 

It  was  the  Bible  which  created  the  prose  literature  of 
England,  of  which  its  Authorised  Version  was  the  noblest 
monument ;  it  was  the  Bible  which  gave  fii'e  and  nobleness 
to  her  language ;  it  was  the  Bible  which  turned  a  dead 
oppression  into  a  living  Church ;  it  was  the  Bible  which 
put  to  flight  the  nightmare  of  ignorance  before  the  ros}"- 
dawn  of  progress ;  it  was  the  Bible  which  made  each  free 
Christian  man  feel  some  gi'andeur  in  the  beatings  of  his 
own  heart,  as  of  a  being  wlio  stood  face  to  face  with  God, 
responsible  to  Him  alone,  having  'the  dignity  of  God's 
image  upon  him,  and  the  sign  of  His  redemption  marked 
visibly  upon  his  forehead.'  It  was  the  Bible  which  saved 
England  from  sinking  into  a  tenth-rate  power  as  a  vassal 
of  cruel,  ignorant,  superstitious  Spain,  whose  Dominicans 
and  tyrants  would  have  turned  her  fields  into  slaughter- 
houses as  they  turned  those  of  the  Netherlands,  and  would 
have  made  her  cities  reek  as  she  made  Seville  reek  with 
the  bale-fires  of  her  Inquisition. 

5.  And  what  the  Bible  did  for  England,  it  did  for  the 
United  States  of  America.  It  was  the  Bible  that  made 
America  what  she  is.  It  was  the  Bible,  and  the  preference 
of  its  pure  unadulterated  lessons  to  subservience  to  tlio 
tjTanny  of  bishops,  which  sent  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  in  the 
Mayflower  to  the  New  England  they  were  to  make  so  great. 

6.  And  so  rich,  so  mai'vellous  is  the  imiversal  adapta- 
bility of  the  Bible  to  every  rank  and  order  of  human 


326  THE   BIBLE 

minds,  that  it  is  equally  fitted  to  rouse  the  barbarian  from 
savagery,  and  to  uplift  the  civiUsed  into  the  foremost 
nations  of  the  world.  In  the  Bible  Society's  offices  may 
be  seen  a  copy  of  St.  John's  Gospel,  beautifully  written 
out  in  1820  by  King  Pomare  II.,  King  of  the  Pacific  isle 
of  Tahiti,  because  he  could  not  procure  a  printed  copy. 
The  Bible  redeemed  his  people  from  savage  wickedness 
to  reverence  and  honour. 

7.  In  Ifeiv  Zealand,  when  an  unbeliever  was  sneering  at 
^    the  Bible  to  a  native  chief,  the  chief  pointed  to  him  a 

great  stone,  and  said,  '  My  fathers  and  I  were  once  blood- 
thirsty cannibals.  On  that  stone  we  slaughtered  and 
roasted  and  devoured  our  human  victims.  We  are  Chris- 
tians now.  What  raised  us  to  what  we  are  from  what 
we  were  ?     The  Bible  at  which  you  scoff.' 

8.  The  late  saintly  Bishop  of  Moosonee  told  me  that 
once,  in  a  small  gathering  of  North  American  Indians  on 
the  coast  of  Hudson's  Bay,  he  found  that  there  was  scarcely 
one  of  those  present  who  had  not,  according  to  their  cus- 
tom, murdered  his  own  mother  when  she  became  too  old  to 
work  5  '  and  now,'  he  said,  '■  if  you  visited  their  wigwams 
you  would  find  each  of  them  in  possession  of  a  Bible,  and 
each  of  them  a  humble  reader  of  it.'  Yes !  because  it  came 
from  true  human  hearts,  it  will  ever  thrill  like  electric 
flame  into  the  hearts  of  men  who  are  men  indeed.  That 
is  because  the  Bible  contains  God's  words  for  all  the  world. 
That  is  why  in  century  after  centuiy  it  renews  its  j^outh 

V    as  the  eagle.     That  is  why  'the  sun  never  sets  upon  its 
gleaming  page.' 

9.  Let  us  now  turn  to  Japan.  Christianity  was  first 
introduced  among  the  Japanese  in  1549,  by  Francis 
Xavier,  and  for  a  time  Christianity  spread  considerably 


PITCAIRN'S  ISLAND  327 

among  the  people.  But  soon,  tlirough  the  meddling  of 
Jesuits,  there  arose  very  serious  quarrels  and  disturbances, 
and  at  last  many  Christians  were  cruelly  put  to  death. 
Persecutions  went  on  more  or  less  for  a  long  period  of 
time ;  almost  all  the  remaining  Christians  in  Japan  were 
murdered;  and  in  1637  Japan  was  closed  'for  ever'  to 
foreigners  and  to  Christianity.  There  was  a  public  in- 
scription put  up  to  the  effect  that  anybody  who  taught  the 
'  vile  Jesus  doctrine,'  as  it  was  called,  should  be  executed. 
Who  was  it  who  reintroduced  Christianity  into  Japan? 
It  was  a  Japanese  nobleman.  One  day  he  saw  in  the  Bay 
of  Yeddo  something  floating  on  the  water,  which  proved 
to  be  a  Bible.  He  did  not,  however,  know  what  it  was, 
but  was  told  that  it  was  a  book  which  had  been  dropped 
from  some  Enghsh  or  American  vessel.  He  became  in- 
terested in  it  and  anxious  to  know  more  about  it.  He 
then  sent  it  to  Shanghai  to  have  it  interpreted  for  him. 
His  study  of  the  truth  was  sanctified  to  him ;  he  was  con- 
verted, and,  in  1857,  was  the  first  Japanese  who  was  bap- 
tised. Two  others  were  baptised  with  him,  and  from  that 
time  Christianity  has  been  a  living  and  growing  power  in 
the  empire.  The  first  great  impulse  was  given  by  that 
single  Bible. 

10.  One  more  instance  only  out  of  many,  to  show  that 
this  efficacy  of  the  Bible  is  not  due  only  to  its  human  ex- 
pounders. Let  us  look  at  a  lonely  and  once  desert  island, 
only  discovered  in  1767.  In  1790  the  crew  of  an  English 
vessel  named  The  Bounti/  mutinied,  mastered  the  vessel, 
and  turned  their  officers  adrift.  Nine  of  the  mutineers, 
with  six  men  and  twelve  women  of  Tahiti,  landed  on  this 
uninliabited  Pitrair)i\<i  Island.  One  of  them  unhappily 
learned  how  to  make  spu-its  from  an  indigenous  root,  and 


328  THE   BIBLE 

that  little  spot,  only  seven  miles  in  circumference,  became 
at  once,  in  consequence  of  the  drink,  a  hell  on  earth. 
Drunkenness  made  its  Paradise  a  scene  of  devilish  orgies 
and  bloody  massacres,  till,  by  the  year  1800,  all  the  Ta- 
hitian  men,  and  all  the  English  but  one  had  perished. 
That  one  English  survivor  was  John  Adams.  He  found 
a  Bible  in  the  wreck  of  The  Bounty  ;  read  it ;  was  struck 
with  remorse  for  his  crimes,  and  from  it  he  taught  the 
Tahitian  women  and  their  children.  He  became  the  head 
of  a  patriarchal  community,  which,  though  half-caste  and 
the  offspring  of  mutineers,  murderers,  and  savages,  be- 
came, through  the  teaching  of  the  Bible,  renowned  through- 
out the  world  for  the  kindness  and  gentleness  of  their 
character,  the  simplicity  and  virtue  of  their  lives. 

In  that  desert  island  was  re-enacted  the  immemorial 
story  of  the  human  race :  the  story  of  Eve  and  the  tree  of 
the  Knowledge  of  Evil ;  the  story  of  Cain,  his  brother's 
murderer ;  the  story  of  Noah's  intoxicated  shame ;  the  stoiy 
of  a  community  plunged  into  destruction  by  drink  and 
sensuality,  saved,  ennobled,  regenerated  by  the  simple 
Word  of  God. 

11.  I  need  not  give  any  further  instances.  But  this  is 
certain :  so  far  as,  and  so  long  as,  England  remains  true  to 
that  simple,  unadulterated  Word  of  God  which  has  been 
purchased  for  us  by  the  misery  of  exiles  and  the  blood  of 
martyrs;  so  far  and  so  long  as  she  stands  fast  in  the 
freedom  wherewith  God  has  made  her  free,  and  is  not 
again  entangled  with  the  yoke  of  bondage— so  far  and  so 
long  as  she  refuses  to  be  either  driven  into  indifference  by 
disgust,  or  seduced  into  delusion  by  false  religion ;  so 
far  and  so  long  will  she  maintain  the  honours  of  this  great 
people.  All  else— call  itself  by  what  sounding  name  it 
will— will  prove  to  be  but  booming  brass  and  tinkling 


AN  OPEN  BIBLE  329 

cymbal.  Let  England  cling  to  her  open  Bible ;  ^  let  her 
learn  from  it  the  broad  truths  of  primitive  Christianity, 
and  be  faithful  to  them ;  let  her  teach  it  to  her  childi-en, 
and  her  childi-en  to  their  children,  and  their  chDdi*en  to 
generations  yet  unborn,  and  then  no  wind  that  blows,  no 
storm  that  beats,  will  shake  her  invincible  foundations, 
for  she  will  be  founded  upon  a  rock !  But  let  her  apos- 
tatise from  its  pure  lessons  into  humanly  invented  falsities, 
and  I  would  not  give  fifty  years'  purchase  either  for  her 
greatness  or  for  the  stability  of  her  Church.  '  The  world 
has  no  other  trumpet  of  peace  save  Holy  Scripture  for 
souls  at  war ;  no  other  weapon  to  slay  terrible  passions ; 
no  other  teaching  to  quench  the  heart's  raging  fires.  This 
book  alone  makes  mortals  immortal,  makes  immortals 
gods.' 

The  Bible  will  ever  continue  to  be  a  lamp  to  our  indi- 
vidual feet  and  a  light  to  our  individual  paths.  It  has 
often  saved  nations  in  their  decadence,  and  Chui*ches  from 
their  corruption.  'If  it  be  a  crime  to  make  known  the 
Scriptures,'  said  the  Bishop  of  Cloyne,  '  it  is  one  of  a  very 
singular  nature ;  for  our  Sa\nour  set  the  example :  the 
Apostles  followed  it,  and  God  Himself  has  commanded 
and  sanctioned  it.' 

Stars  are  poor  books,  and  oftentimes  do  miss ; 
This  book  of  stars  lights  to  eternal  bliss. 

^  The  Council  of  Trent  said  : '  Indiscriminata  lectio  Sacrte  Scriptnrffi 
interdicta  est.'  So  the  Pope  in  1816  .said:  'Si  Sacra  Biblia  vulgari 
lingua  passim  sine  discrimine  pemiittantur,  plus  inde  detrimenti 
quam  utilitatis  oriri.'  Pope  Pius  Yl.  spoke  of  the  Scriptures  as 
'fontes  uberrimi  qui  cuique  patere  debent,'  but  Pope  Pius  VII.,  op- 
posing the  Bible  Society  in  Poland,  expressed  his  'horror  at  this  most 
subtle  attempt  to  undermine  the  very  foundation  of  religion.' 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

CONCLUSION. 

'And  with  that  he  held  his  peace.  And  all  the  people  then  shouted 
and  said,  Great  is  Truth,  and  mighty  above  all  things.'— 1  Esdras 
iv.  41. 

'Ama  Scripturas  et  amabit  te  sapientia.'— St.  Jerome. 

'It  is  the  king's  best  copy,  the  magistrate's  best  rule,  the  house- 
wife's best  giiide,  the  servant's  best  directory,  and  the  young  man's 
best  companion.'— Huntington. 

To  point  out  all  the  ways  and  the  extent  to  -which  Scrip- 
ture has  been  a  priceless  boon  to  the  race  of  man  would 
be  a  task  without  end.  The  ways  are  manifold,  the  extent 
infinite.  When  Bishop  Watson  published  his  'Apology 
for  the  Bible,'  George  III.  remarked  '  that  he  did  not  know 
the  Bible  wanted  any  apology.'  The  Bible  needs  no 
apology,  for  humanity  has  set  its  seal  thereto,  and  can 
never  be  robbed  of  its  treasured  blessedness.  Securus 
judicat  orhis  f  err  arum. 

'What  truth,  what  saving  truth  without  the  Word  of 
God  ? '  ask  King  James's  translators.  '  What  word  of  God 
whereof  we  may  be  sure  without  the  Scripture  ? ' 

And,  again,  *  The  Scriptures  being  acknowledged  to  be 
so  good  and  so  perfect,  how  can  we  excuse  ourselves  of 
negligence  if  we  do  not  study  them  ?  of  curiosity  if  we  be 
not  content  with  them  ? ' 

330 


CONTENTS  OF   SCRIPTURE  331 

There  may  be  some  "vv^ho  would  pronounce  such  eulogies 
somewhat  vague,  rhetorical,  and  indiscriminating ;  but 
they  come  from  full  and  sincere  hearts,  and  they  corre- 
spond to  many  phases  of  universal  experience. 

Writing  of  the  Bible,  as  he  always  does  with  earnest 
enthusiasm,  Mr.  Ruskin  says  : 

'  Match,  if  you  can,  its  Table  of  Contents ! 

*  First  you  have 

'  1.  The  story  of  the  Fall  and  of  the  Flood,  grandest  of 
human  traditions  founded  on  a^  true  hoiTor  of  sin. 

'  2.  The  story  of  the  Patriarchs. 

'3.  The  story  of  Moses,  with  the  results  of  that  tradi- 
tion on  the  moral  law  of  all  the  ci\dlised  world. 

*  4.  The  stoiy  of  the  Kings ;  vii-tually  that  of  all  king- 
hood  in  David,  and  all  philosophy  in  Solomon,  culminating 
in  the  Psalms  and  Proverbs,  and  the  still  more  close  and 
practical  wisdom  of  Ecclesiastes  and  the  son  of  Sirach. 

*5,  The  story  of  the  Prophets;  virtually  the  deepest 
mystery,  tragedy,  and  permanent  fate  of  national  exist- 
ence. 

'  6.  The  story  of  Christ. 

'  7.  The  moral  law  of  St.  John  and  his  closing  Apoca- 
lypse of  its  fulfilment.'  ^ 

Yet  some  features  of  Scripture  as  a  whole  are  so  striking 
that  we  may  well  touch  speciall}^  upon  them. 

St.  Paul  mentions  three  of  them.  He  says  that '  What- 
soever things  were  WTitten  aforetime  were  written  for  our 
learning,  that  we  through  patience,  and  comfort  of  the 
Scriptures,  might  have  our  hope.'  Instruction,  endurance, 
consolation— those  three  blessings  we  may  always  find. 

1.  We  may  find  Instruction.  Solomon  tells  us  that  he 
wrote  his  Proverbs  'to  know  wisdom  and  instruction,  to 
1  Ruskin,  Bible  of  Amiens,  p.  133. 


332  THE  BIBLE 

perceive  the  words  of  understanding;  to  receive  the  in- 
struction  of  wisdom,  justice,  and  right,  and  equity  j  to 
give  subtlety  to  the  simple,  to  the  young  man  knowledge 
and  discretion.  A  wise  man  will  hear  and  will  increase 
in  learning ;  and  a  man  of  understanding  shall  attain  unto 
wise  counsels.' 

The  instructiveness  of  the  Bible  is  largely  due  to  the  uni- 
versality on  which  I  have  already  dwelt.  In  the  rigid  sys- 
tems of  modern  sectaries  we  are  often  stifled,  we  are  sickened, 
we  pant  for  God's  free  air^  we  are  overshadowed  by  man's 
pettiness  and  gloom.  AU  is  narrow  suspicion,  dreary  func- 
tion, and  self-satisfied  intolerance.  Life  in  its  largeness  and 
beauty  is  dwarfed  into  a  selfish  struggle  after  individual 
salvation ;  the  world  becomes  a  sea  strewn  with  shipwrecks 
where  our  sole  business  is  to  seize  a  plank.  The  Bible  in 
its  immensity  and  its  ever-broadening  horizon  is  one  mag- 
nificent protest  against  this  poverty  of  conception.  In  stead 
of  dimly  groping  round  the  narrow  circle  of  opinionative 
intolerance  it  sets  our  feet  upon  the  mountain  and  turns 
our  eyes  towards  the  sun.  From  the  formless  chaos  of 
Genesis  to  the  new  heaven  of  Revelation  it  overarches  the 
throne  of  God  with  a  rainbow  of  mercy  in  sight  like  unto 
an  emerald. 

It  is  not  a  book  for  religiosity,  or  Pharisaism,  or  out- 
ward forms,  or  repeated  shibboleths,  or  rigid  scholasticism. 
It  recognises  that  true  religion  is  morality  and  large-heart- 
edness  and  love.  In  it,  as  by  the  outpouring  of  a  perpetual 
Pentecost,  we  listen  to  the  voices  of  men  and  nations,  and 
we  do  hear  them  speak  in  our  tongue  the  wonderful  works 
of  God. 

And  this  central  idea  of  Scripture  accounts  for  the  fact 
that  with  all  its  diversity  and  universality  it  is  gifted  also 
with  a  Divine  adaptability.    Tlie  Bible  is  beyond  all  other 


ADAPTABILITY   OF  SCRIPTURE  333 

books  the  Book  of  the  World.  Other  books  are  for  special 
times  or  separate  races ;  this  book  has  been  dear  in  every 
age  to  men  of  all  races.  Other  books  are  for  the  poor  or 
for  the  rich  J  this  book  regards  poor  and  rich  alike,  not 
under  the  inch-high  differences  of  ■^vealth  and  rank,  but 
as  heirs  aUke  of  the  common  mysteries  of  Life  and  Death, 
of  Redemption  and  Immortality.  Other  books  are  for  the 
matui'e  or  the  youthful ;  this  book  alone  neither  wearies 
the  aged  nor  repels  the  young.  Other  books  are  only  for 
the  learned,  or  only  for  the  ignorant;  this  book,  in  the 
sweetest  and  simplest  elements  of  its  revelation,  is  as  dear 
to  the  Gei'man  philosopher  as  to  the  negi-o's  child.  In  it 
mind  speaks  to  mind  and  heart  to  heart,  soul  to  soul.  *  It 
is  no  light  thing,'  it  has  been  said,  '  to  hold  with  an  elec- 
tric chain,  be  it  but  for  one  hour,  even  a  hundred  hearts ; 
but  this  book  has  held  millions  of  hearts,  and  that  for 
centuries.  Thousands  of  writers  come  up  in  one  genera- 
tion to  be  totally  forgotten  in  the  next,  but  the  silver  cord 
of  the  Bible  is  not  loosed,  nor  its  golden  bowl  broken,  as 
Time  chronicles  its  tens  of  centuries  passed  by.' 

2.  In  old  days  a  Bible  cost  almost  as  much  as  a  king's 
ransom.  A  load  of  hay  was  thought  a  cheap  price  for  a 
few  leaves  of  it.  In  these  days  we  may  buy  a  good  copy 
of  the  Bible  for  eighteenpence ;  but  to  buy  it  is  one  thing, 
to  possess,  to  know  it,  to  imderstand  it,  to  make  it  a  lamp 
unto  the  feet,  and  a  light  unto  the  path  is  quite  another. 
*  It  is  not  to  be  had,'  says  Mr.  Ruskin,  '  at  that  low  figure, 
the  whole  119th  Psalm  being  little  more  than  one  agonis- 
ing prayer  for  the  gift  of  it,  and  a  man's  life  is  well  spent 
if  he  has  tnily  received  and  learned  to  read  ever  so  little 
a  part  of  it.' 

3.  And  whether  to  any  good  purpose  we  understand  it 
or  not,  depends  whoUy  on  the  spirit  with  which  we  read  it. 


334  THE   BIBLE 

In  his  last  sickness,  Arclibishop  Usher  was  observed, 
one  day,  sitting  in  his  wheel-chair  with  his  Bible  in  his 
lap,  and  moving  his  position  as  the  sun  stole  round  to  the 
westward  so  as  to  let  the  light  alwaj^s  fall  on  the  sacred 
page.     That  is  a  symbol  of  the  right  use  of  the  Bible. 

It  is  truly  said,  '  Read  it  in  the  sunshine  of  love,  and 
love  will  shine  forth  from  its  gleaming  page.' 

The  sunshine  may  sometimes  fail  us,  but  surely  we  may 
always  find  some  glow-worm  light  whereby  to  read. 

'This  evening,'  says  a  pleasant  writer,  'I  have  been 
turning  glow-worms  to  a  use  which  probably  no  naturalist 
ever  thought  of —reading  the  Psalms  by  their  cool  green 
radiance.  I  placed  six  of  the  most  luminous  insects  I 
could  find  at  the  top  of  the  page,  moving  them  from  verse 
to  verse  as  I  descended.  The  experiment  vras  perfectly 
successful.  Each  letter  became  clear  and  legible,  making 
me  feel  deeply  and  gratefully  the  inner  life  of  the  Psalm- 
ist's adoration :  "  Oh  Lord !  how  manifold  are  Thy  works ! 
in  wisdom  hast  Thou  made  them  all ;  the  earth  is  full  of 
Thy  riches."  By  the  help  of  this  emerald  of  the  hedgerow 
I  can  read  not  only  the  hymns  of  saints  to  God,  but  God's 
message  to  me.  I  could  not  have  read  evensong  among 
the  trees  by  night,  unless  I  had  moved  the  lamp  up  and 
down.  One  verse  shone  while  the  rest  of  the  page  was 
dark.  Patience  alone  was  needed.  Line  by  line  the  whole 
Psalm  grew  bright.  The  sequestered  paths  of  the  Gospel 
garden  are  studded  with  glow-worms.  I  have  only  to 
stoop  and  find  them.  These  recollections  are  my  lanterns 
in  the  dark.  The  past  lights  up  the  present.  I  move  my 
glow-worm  lower  on  the  page  and  read  to-day  by  yester- 
day.' 1 

Cromwell  quoted  the  two  verses  of  the  117th  Psalm— '  O 
1  R.  S.  Wilmot,  Summer  Time  in  the  Country. 


VERSES  OF  PSALMS  335 

praise  the  Lord,  all  ye  nations :  praise  Him,  all  ye  people. 
For  His  merciful  kindness  is  great  towards  us :  and  the 
truth  of  the  Lord  endureth  for  ever'— after  the  victory  at 
Dunbar.  Tlie  fourteenth  verse  of  the  118th  Psalm— '  The 
Lord  is  my  strength  and  song,  and  is  become  ray  salvation ' 
—was  chosen  for  the  text  of  the  sermon  preached  by  Car- 
stairs  at  Torbay  in  1688,  after  the  landing  of  William  HI. 
The  sixth  verse  of  the  same  Psalm— 'The  Lord  is  on  my 
side ;  I  will  not  fear :  what  can  man  do  unto  me  ?  '—cheered 
the  Protestants  on  the  day  of  St.  Bartholomew ;  the  twenty- 
third  verse— 'This  is  the  Lord's  doing'— was  quoted  by 
Queen  Elizabeth  when  she  heard  of  her  accession.  The 
llOtli  was  being  chanted  by  the  monks  at  the  Certosa  in 
1515,  when  Francis  was  taken  prisoner  at  Pavia;  and 
when  they  came  to  the  nineteenth  verse — 'I  am  a  stranger 
in  the  earth :  hide  not  Thy  commandments  from  me  '—he 
joined  his  voice  with  theirs.  The  122nd  Psalm  furnished 
Bishop  Grafton  with  his  text— '  I  was  glad  when  they  said 
unto  me,  Let  us  go  into  the  house  of  the  Lord'— at  St. 
Paul's  Cathedral  after  the  Great  Fire,  and  was  again  the 
text  after  the  Peace  of  Ryswick.  The  fii-st  verse  of  the 
137th— '  By  the  rivers  of  Babylon,  tliere  we  sat  down,  yea, 
we  wept,  when  we  remembered  Zion'— comforted  John, 
King  of  France,  when  he  was  taken  captive  at  Poictiers. 
The  second  verse  of  the  146  th— 'While  I  live  wiU  I  praise 
the  Lord'— was  quoted  by  the  Earl  of  Strafford  as  he 
stood  on  the  scaffold.  The  sixth  verse  of  the  149th— '  Let 
tlie  high  praises  of  God  be  in  their  mouth,  and  a  two-edged 
sword  in  their  hand  '—was  the  text  of  Wishart's  sermon 
before  the  Battle  of  Bothwell  Bridge. 

These  are  remarkable  instances,  yet  they  do  not  repre- 
sent a  thousandth  part  of  the  spell  exercised  by  special 
Psalms,  and  particular  verses  of  them,  throughout  the 


336  THE  BIBLE 

entire  period  of  English  history.  The  first  verse  of  Psahn 
xxiv.— 'The  earth  is  the  Lord's,  and  the  fulness  thereof; 
the  world,  and  they  that  dwell  therein'— was  the  motto 
chosen  by  Prince  Albert  for  the  Great  Exhibition  of  1851. 
The  first  verse  of  the  27th— '  The  Lord  is  my  light  and  my 
salvation ;  whom  shall  I  fear  ?  The  Lord  is  the  strength 
of  my  life,  of  whom  shall  I  be  afraid?'— is  the  motto  of 
the  University  of  Oxford.^ 

If,  then,  we  merely  take  the  Psalter  alone,  was  not  St. 
Athanasius  right  in  calling  the  Psalms  '  a  mirror  of  the 
soul '  ?  and  St.  Ambrose  in  saying  that  '  the  Psalter  is  the 
praise  of  God,  the  weal  of  man,  the  voice  of  the  Church, 
the  best  confession  of  faith '  ?  '  They  are  read  in  aU  the 
world,'  says  St.  Augustine, '  and  there  is  nothing  hid  from 
the  heat  thereof.'  Such  testimonies  abound  in  all  ages  of 
Christian  history.  'The  choice  and  flower  of  aU  things 
profitable  in  other  books,'  says  Hooper,  'the  Psalms  do 
both  more  briefly  contain,  and  more  movingly  also  ex- 
press. .  .  .  What  is  there  necessary  for  man  to  know  which 
the  Psalms  are  not  able  to  teach  ?  Heroical  magnanimity ' 
exquisite  justice,  grave  moderation,  exact  wisdom,  repent- 
ance confessed,  unwearied  patience,  the  mysteries  of  God, 
the  sufferings  of  Christ,  the  terrors  of  wrath,  the  comforts 
of  grace,  the  works  of  Providence  over  this  world,  and  the 
promised  joys  of  that  world  which  is  to  come,  aU  good 
necessary  to  be  either  known,  or  done,  or  had,  this  one 
celestial  fountain  yieldeth.  Let  there  be  gi-ief  or  disease 
incident  unto  the  soul  of  man,  any  wound  or  sickness 
named,  for  which  there  is  not  in  this  treasure-house  a 
present  comfortable  remedy  at  all  times  ready  to  be  found.' 
To  quote  but  one  more  eminent  witness,  Mr.  Gladstone 

1  Many  more  instances  might  be  quoted.  See  Ker,  The  Psalms  in 
History  and  Biography,  1886. 


THE  GOSPEL  337 

says, '  All  the  wonders  of  Greek  civilisation  heaped  together 
are  less  wonderful  than  is  the  simple  book  of  Psalms— the 
history  of  the  human  soul  in  relation  to  its  Maker.' 

Yet  priceless  as  is  the  value  of  the  Psalms,  they  form 
but  a  small  part  of  the  Scriptures.  The  Old  Testament 
abounds  in  inestimable  spu'itual  lessons,  and  contains 
histories  and  prophecies  which  we  could  not  lose  without 
the  world  being  left  indefinitely  the  poorer.  Yet  not  even 
the  most  precious  portions  of  the  Old  Testament  can  be 
compared  in  worth  with  the  knowledge  which  God  has 
given  us  of  that  revelation  of  Himself  in  Christ  which 
forms  the  one  main  subject  of  the  New  Testament.  If  we 
have  but  the  gi-ace  to  read  that  book  aright  we  are 

As  rich  in  having  such  a  jewel 
As  twenty  seas,  if  all  their  sands  were  pearl, 
The  water  nectar,  and  the  rocks  pure  gold. 

And  if  any  simple  reader  has  been  perplexed  by  ques- 
tions on  which  the  sacred  interests  of  truth  have  here 
compelled  us  to  touch,  these  few  concluding  words  of  the 
most  eloquent  of  English  divines  will  give  him  a  safe  and 
sufficient  rule  for  his  guidance :  '  Do  not  hear  or  read  the 
Scriptures  for  any  other  end  but  to  become  better  in  your 
daily  walk,  and  to  be  instructed  in  every  good  work,  and 
increase  in  the  love  and  service  of  God.'  ^ 

1  Jeremy  Taylor,  Holy  Living,  iv.  4. 


22 


INDEX 


Aboth  and  Toldoth  (Rabbinical 
rules),  meaning  of,  97 

Abraham,  Professor:  on  inspira- 
tion, 117 

Absolution,  its  significance  in 
Scripture,  227  sq. 

Adams,  John :  the  patriarch  of 
Pitcairn's  Island,  327  sq. 

Adams,  President  John  Quincy : 
advised  the  constant  reading  of 
the  Scriptures,  286 ;  the  Bible 
is  '  an  inexhaustible  mine  of 
knowledge  and  virtue,'  ib. 

Adaptability  of  Scripture,  332 

Addison:  his  Scriptural  allusions, 
276 

Adrian  VI. :  denounced  the  de- 
pravity of  the  Roman  Curio,  209 

Agnosticism:  the  word  invented 
by  Professor  Hiixley,  267 

*  Alaijah  the  Shilonite,  the  Book 
of,' 40 

Albert,  Prince :  the  motto  he 
chose  for  the  Exhibition  of 
1851,  336 

Albigensian  Crusades,  the,  190 

Alexander  VI.,  the  character  of, 
227 

Allegory,  exaggerated  use  of,  in 
Biblical  exegesis,  58 ;  growth 
of  the  method,  63 ;  Philo's  use 
of  it,  64 ;  etymology  of  '  alle- 
gory,' 66  H. 

Alonso  V.  (Aragon) :  a  constant 
Bible  reader,  283 


Alva,  Duke  of:  his  cruelties  in 
the  Netherlands,  198  sq. 

Ambrose,  St. :  asserted  that  the 
sky  is  a  solid  vault,  162;  pro- 
test against  religious  persecu- 
tion, 196  ;  his  influence  on  St. 
Augustine,  293;  praise  of  the 
Psalter,  336 

Amycla,  Bishop  of :  Roman  Cath- 
olic teaching  on  inspiration,  112 

Anselm,  St. :  his  doctrine  on  the 
Atonement,  12 

'  Antecedent '  inspiration,  122 

Anthropopatlnj :  meaning  of  the 
term,  254  n. 

AntUegomcna,  meaning  of,  29 

Antitlieses  and  antinomies  of  the 
Bible,  92 

'  Apocalypse  of  Elijah,'  112 

Apocrj-pha,  the  :  no  indisputable 
quotation  from,  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament, 28 ;  included  in  the 
LXX,  29  n. 

Aqiba,  Rabbi:  on  the  'Song  of 
Songs,'  31 ;  on  the  mystic 
meaning  of  the  letters  &c.  of 
Scripture,  68 

Aquila:  his  version  of  the  Old 
Testament,  111  n. 

AiTnagh,  Archbishop  of:  on  the 
different  influences  of  the  Bible 
on  individuals,  309 

Arnobius :  his  definition  of  religio, 
171  n. 

Arnold,  Abbot  of  Citeaux,  190 


339 


340 


INDEX 


Arnold.  Dr. :  on  '  eternal  pro- 
gress,' 44;  on  the  command  to 
exterminate  the  Canaanites, 
184 

Arnold,  Matthew:  on  the  right 
understanding  of  the  Bible, 
220;  the  Bible  his  constant 
study,  269 

Artisans,  English,  spread  of  scep- 
ticism amongst,  2 ;  how  this  is 
to  be  met,  8,  14 

Artists,  the  great:  influence  of 
the  Bible  on  their  works,  263 

Arundel,  Ai-chbishop :  denuncia- 
tion of  WyclifEe's  translation, 
211 

Ascension,  the  miracle  of  the,  242 

Athanasius,  St. :  the  Psalms  are 
'  a  mirror  of  the  soul,'  336 

Atonement,  the  Day  of,  26 

Atonement,  the  :  wrong  opinions 
about,  11 

Augustine,  St,  :  on  the  '  marvel- 
lous depth '  of  God's  utterances, 
52;  condemned  the  excesses  of 
mystical  interpretation,  76  n.; 
on  sources  of  Biblical  difficul- 
ties, 109;  the  methods  of  the 
Evangelists,  110  n. ;  on  the 
Septuagint,  111;  on  the  varia- 
tions of  the  Evangelists,  121  n. ; 
admitted  the  absence  of  science 
from  the  Scriptures,  159;  as- 
serted that  there  could  be  no 
Antipodes,  162 ;  on  the  sense  of 
Scriptm'e,  169 ;  God  revealed 
through  creation  and  the  Scrip- 
tures, 174 ;  on  the  command  to 
exterminate  the  Canaanites, 
183  n. ;  upheld  religious  intol- 
erance, 195  n. ;  his  explanation 
of  the  text  'Thou  art  Peter,' 
&c.,  225;  the  real  meaning  of 
Scripture,  232 ;  account  of  his 
conversion,  292  sq. ;  eulogy  of 
the  Psalms,  336 

Aulus  Gellius:  his  definition  of 
rrligiofius,  171  w. 

Authorised  Version  of  the  Bible  : 
examples  of  its  inaccurate  ren- 
derings, 135  n. 


'  Authority  of  the  Church,'  the, 

what  is  meant  by,  35 
Averroes:  a  source  of  medisBval 

theology,  210 

Babel,  the  story  of :  an  interpre- 
tation, 243  sq. 

Bacon,  Lord:  allusions  to  the 
Bible  in  his  essays,  275 ;  his 
'  Student's  Prayer,'  284 

Bacon,  Eoger:  his  sufferings  for 
science,  163 

Bagot,  Dean :  on  the  composition 
of  the  Bible,  126 

Balaam,  the  stoiy  of:  an  inter- 
pretation, 244  sq. 

'  Barnabas,  Epistle  of,'  29  « .,  41  w.  / 
its  view  of  ceremonial  Judaism, 
95 

Basil,  St. :  condemned  the  ex- 
cesses of  mystical  interpreta- 
tion, 76  n. 

Baxter,  Richard :  view  of  the  Old 
Testament,  96;  his  theory  of 
inspiration,  123 

Bede,  Venerable :  his  exegesis  of 
Scripture,  72 

Benedict  IX.,  the  character  of, 
227 

Benson,  Ai'chbishop:  on  the  use 
of  myth  and  legend  in  Scrip- 
ture, 258  n. 

Bereavement,  consolations  af- 
forded by  Scripture  in,  311  sq. 

Beringer,  JProf essor :  his  *  Litho- 
graphise  Specimen,'  162 

Bible,  the — Present  Da  i/  Treatment 
of  Scripture:  difficulties  to  be 
met  by  apologists  of  the  Bible, 
1 ;  need  of  removing  dubious  or 
false  accretions,  4;  the  doctrine 
of  '  eternal  torments,'  5 ;  at- 
tacks on  Christianity  founded 
on  misstatement  of  doctrine,  7 ; 
opinions  mistaken  for  doc- 
trines: examples,  10;  modifica- 
tions arising  from  changing 
phases  of  thought,  14;  the  true 
attitude  of  Cliristians  towards 
the  Bible,  16 ;  the  definite  teach- 
ing of  the  Church  of  England, 


INDEX 


341 


17  sqq. ;  peril  of  '  exorbitant  in- 
ferences,' 22 

Bible,  the  —  Formation  of  the 
Canon :  it  is  not  a  homogene- 
ous book,  25;  first  appearance 
of  a  collected  Pentateuch,  26; 
history  of  the  Canon  :  Old  Tes- 
tament, 27;  New  Testament, 
28;  hesitation  about  admitting 
certain  books,  29 ;  Luther's  test 
of  eanouicity,  30;  Old  Testa- 
ment Canon  not  settled  till 
A.  D.  70,  33 ;  authority  on  which 
we  accept  the  Canon,  35 

Bible,  the  —  Fragmentary  Char- 
acter: e\idence  of  compilation 
of  the  Old  Testament  from  re- 
mains of  an  extensive  litera- 
ture, 39;  the  New  Testament 
a  portion  only  of  early  Chris- 
tian writings,  41 ;  results  of 
critical  analysis,  42;  need  of 
modifying  traditional  views  re- 
specting Scripture,  43;  new 
truths  brought  out  by  the 
Higher  Criticism,  44 ;  consensus 
of  German  scholars  against  the 
inerrancy  of  Scripture,  45 

Bible,  the — Its  Variety  and 
Unity:  evidence  of  progressive 
truth,  49;  of  the  diversity  of 
the  elements  of  which  revela- 
tion is  composed,  ib.;  it  was 
wi'itten  by  all  sorts  and  condi- 
tions of  men,  51;  results  of  this 
rich  diversity,  52;  it  is  full  of 
interest  for  all,  53 ;  its  profound 
influence  on  human  history,  na- 
tional literature,  and  individual 
life,  56;  its  essential  unity, 
especially  in  the  unifying  ele- 
ment of  Christ,  56  sqq. 

Bible,  the  —  Exegesis:  the  Bible 
contains  a  progressive  revela- 
tion, 60;  the  morality  of  some 
parts  is  not  in  accord  with  the 
teaching  of  Christ,  61 ;  ori^n  of 
Philo's  method  of  allegorising, 
63;  his  theory  of  inspiration, 
ib. ;  his  manner  of  treating  the 
Law,  64;  his  method  adopted 


by  Origen  and  continued  by 
Christian  teachers,  67;  the  fa- 
cility thus  given  for  imaginary 
interpretations,  68  sqq. ;  ex- 
amples from  Christian  followers 
of  Philo's  method,  70  sqq. 

Bible,  the  —  Its  Morality:  the 
Imprecatory  Psalms,  78;  the 
institution  of  slavery,  80 ;  wars 
of  extermination:  the  Midian- 
ites,  81 ;  the  lives  of  the  patri- 
archs, 83 ;  meaning  of  '  God 
tempted  David,'  ib. ;  the  story 
of  Jephthah,  84;  character  of 
David,  85 ;  the  seven  sons  of 
Saul,  87 ;  a  human  sacrifice, 
ib. ;  heterogeneous  elements  of 
the  Bible,  89 

Bible,  the  —  Antitheses  of  Scrip- 
ture: difference  between  the 
Law  and  the  Prophets,  92 ;  dif- 
ferences in  the  points  of  view 
of  writers  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, 93;  heresies  about  the 
Old  Testament :  Marcion,  94 ; 
annulment  of  the  Levitical 
Law:  examples,  96;  observ- 
ance of  the  Sabbath,  97 ;  Christ 
and  the  Law,  98 ;  Calvin's  view 
of  David's  hatred  of  his  ene- 
mies, 99;  various  misuses  and 
perversions  of  the  Bible,  101 
sqq. 

Bible,  the  —  ^Verbal  Dictation^: 
the  theory  untenable,  104 ;  this 
doctrine  asserted  by  the  later 
Reformers :  the  '  Helvetic  Con- 
fession '  and  Calovius,  105,  106 ; 
exaggerations  of  the  doctrine, 
106 ;  its  irreverence,  99 ;  its 
uselessness,  107 ;  the  writers  of 
the  Scriptures  are  indifferent  to 
verbal  fidelity,  109;  even  the 
discourses  of  Christ  are  not  re- 
produced by  the  Evangelists 
with  verbal  identity,  110 ;  the 
LXX  most  frequently  used  for 
quotations.  111 ;  quotations  of 
uncertain  origin,  112;  perver- 
sions of  interpreters,  113 

Bible,     the  —  '  Plenary    Inspira- 


342 


INDEX 


Hon':  vague  and  undefined 
meaning  of  'inspiration,'  114; 
ethnic  inspiration :  its  mean- 
ing, 115 ;  use  of  '  inspiration ' 
in  English  literature,  116 ;  no 
Jewish  opinion  on '  inspiration,' 
nor  has  the  Christian  Church 
defined  it,  117;  the  Scripture 
use  of  the  word :  never  confused 
with  infallibility,  118;  mis- 
chievous perversion  of  the 
phrase  '  plenary  inspiration,' 
120;  four  theories  of  inspira- 
tion described,  121;  superna- 
tural dictation  of  Scripture  no 
part  of  Christian  faith,  123; 
human  limitations,  124;  errors 
lurking  in  the  use  of  indeter- 
minate words,  125  ;  the  divine- 
human  in  Scripture,  126 ;  how 
to  disintegrate  the  word  of  God 
from  the  word  of  man  in  Scrip- 
ture, 127  ;  the  function  of  rea- 
son, 129 ;  the  voice  of  God  still 
speaks  to  our  hearts  and  con- 
sciences, 131. 

Bible,  the —  Hie  Higher  Criticism : 
meaning  of  the  phrase,  133 ;  the 
duty  of  close  examination,  ib.  ; 
elements  of  imcertainty  in  the 
Bible  :  faulty  translations,  134 ; 
variations  in  the  text  and  in  in- 
terpretations, 135 ;  the  progres- 
sive character  of  Divine  revela- 
tion, 136;  hence  the  need  of 
inquiry  into  the  structure  and 
character  of  the  Sacred  Books, 
137;  the  facts  exposed  by  the 
Higher  Criticism  may  not  be 
shirked,  ib.  ;  the  Bible  must  be 
humanly  interpreted,  138 ;  this 
does  not  affect  any  truth  of  re- 
ligion, ib.  ;  Christ's  treatment  of 
the  Old  Testament,  139;  need 
of  speaking  the  truth,  140 

Bible,  the  —  It  contains  the  Word 
of  God:  examination  of  Cart- 
wright's  argument  that  it  is  the 
word  of  God,  142 ;  the  Scrip- 
tures as  a  whole  never  claim  to 
be  the  word  of  God,  though  the 


phrase  often  occurs,  134;  this 
IS  the  teaching  of  the  Universal 
Church  as  well  as  of  the  Angli- 
can Church,  146;  the  evils 
caused  by  the  contrary  modem 
doctrine,  147 

Bible,  the  —  Biblical  Infallibility: 
sufficiency  of  Scripture  for  aU 
things  necessary  to  salvation, 
150 ;  limitation  of  the  '  infalli- 
bility '  of  the  records  of  Divine 
revelation,  151 ;  no  two  great 
branches  of  the  Church  in 
agreement  as  to  what  is  the 
Bible,  as  to  the  authoritative 
text,  nor  as  to  the  rule  of  inter- 
pretation, ib.  ;  the  infallibility 
of  the  letter  has  been  a  sterile 
and  dangerous  dogma,  154; 
'lucidity'  of  Scripture,  ib.  ;  op- 
posite interpretations,  155 ;  ob- 
solete and  worthless  commen- 
taries, 157 

Bible,  the  —  Besults  of  the  Super- 
natural Dictation  Tlieory :  sci- 
ence not  revealed  in  the  Bible, 
158;  battles  of  theologians 
against  science,  160;  absurd 
schemes  professedly  drawn 
from  Scripture,  162 ;  persecu- 
tioD  of  scientists :  Roger  Bacon, 
163  ;  Galileo,  164 ;  Buffon,  165 ; 
geologists,  ib.;  Mr.  Darwin  and 
the  theory  of  evolution,  167; 
the  teaching  in  Gen.  i. :  triviali- 
ties, heresies,  and  forced  infer- 
ences derived  from  it  by  com- 
mentators, 168 

Bible,  the  —  Not  the  only  Source 
of  our  Knowledge  of  God :  criti- 
cism of  Chillingworth,  170  ;  def- 
inition of  '  religion,'  ib. ;  other 
sources  of  ascertaining  the  will 
of  God :  history,  172 ;  bio- 
graphy, 174 ;  Scripture  con- 
stantly refers  us  to  Nature  as  a 
revelation  of  God,  ib. ;  the  con- 
science of  man  is  a  book  of 
God,  177 ;  truths  revealed  to 
the  Gentiles,  ib. ;  faith  existed 
for   ages    without  any   Scrip- 


INDEX 


343 


tnres,  179;  the  Bible  a  very 
gradual  gift  to  man,  180;  it  is 
not  a  '  religion,'  181 

Bible,  the  —  Misin  terprctation  : 
examples  of  perverted  uses : 
the  wars  of  extermination  en- 
joined by  the  great  Prophets, 
182;  theories  in  explanation, 
183;  kind  legislation  in  the 
Mosaic  Law,  187 ;  eases  of  un- 
reprehended  deceitfulness  in 
the  Bible :  abuse  of  their 
meaning,  189 ;  the  Albigensian 
Crusades,  190;  treatment  of 
witchcraft,  191 ;  religious  per- 
secution, founded  on  gross  per- 
version of  texts,  194;  repudi- 
ated by  the  early  Christians, 
196;  the  butcheries  of  Alva, 
198;  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bar- 
tholomew, ib. ;  the  persecuting 
spirit,  200 ;  '  passive  obedience ' 
upheld  by  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, ib.  ;  Komish  justification 
of  the  assassination  of  kings, 
202 ;  the  spirit  which  thus  mis- 
used the  Bible  is  not  dead : 
Scriptural  defence  of  slavery, 
203 ;  such  perversions  are  not  to 
be  charged  against  Scripture, 
205:  the  Bible  itself  has  deliv- 
ered mankind  from  the  curses 
caused  by  its  perversion,  207 ; 
instances  of  ignorance :  the  Ro- 
mish doctrine  of  '  penance,'  ih. ; 
mediteval  ignorance  of  the 
Bible,  208;  duty  of  private 
judgment,  211;  attempts  to 
keep  the  Bible  from  the  people, 
211  sqq.  ;  the  Bible  must  be 
judged  as  a  whole,  215;  mis- 
chief wrought  by  human  per- 
versions and  himianly  invented 
theories,  215  sqq. 

Bible,  iha  — The  Wresting  of 
Texts :  the  book  is  not  a  con- 
geries of  '  texts,'  218 ;  charac- 
teristics of  Biblical  language, 
219 ;  causes  of  error :  the  doc- 
trine of  the  superaatural  in- 
fallibility of  every  book  and 


sentence,  220 ;  origin  of  the  di- 
vision of  the  Bible  into  sections 
and  texts,  221  sq. ;  instances  of 
perverted  citation  and  use  of 
texts,  222;  'mystical  interpre- 
tation,' 224;  Papal  misuse  of 
texts.  224  sq. ;  the  text '  On  this 
rock'  &c.,  225;  the  'power  of 
the  keys,'  227;  'This  is  My 
body,'  229 ;  neglect  of  the  con- 
text in  quoting  Scriptiire,  229 
sq.  ;  doctrine  of  '  eternal  tor- 
ments,' 230;  distorted  meta- 
phors^ 231 ;  the  rule  of  the 
Rabbis,  St,  Augustine,  St. 
Chrysostom,  John  Wesley,  232 
sq. 

Bible,  the  —  Scripture  Difficulties : 
coarse  stories  and  phrases :  the 
story  of  Lot,  237  ;  its  real  mean- 
ing, 238 ;  story  of  Hosea,  239 ; 
stupendous  violations  of  the 
laws  of  Nature  :  miracles,  240 ; 
the  story  of  the  Fall,  243; 
Babel,  243  sq. ;  Balaam,  244; 
explanation  of  *  the  sim  stand- 
ing still,'  246;  the  story  of 
Jonah,  250  sqq. ;  its  explana- 
tion, 253 ;  our  Lord's  reference 
to  the  'sign'  of  Jonah,  257; 
uses  of  legends  and  myths  by 
New  Testament  writers,  258 

Bible,  the  —  Its  Supremacy: 
proofs  of  the  imique  transcen- 
dence of  Holy  Writ,  260  sq. ;  its 
grandeur  estimated  by  great 
minds  from  Longinus  to  the 
present  day,  262;  a  cloud  of 
witnesses  to  its  glory  and  su- 
premacy :  men  of  various  creeds 
and  conditions,  263  sqq.  ;  testi- 
monies of  great  writers,  269 
sqq. ;  of  rulers  and  statesmen, 
283  sqq. ;  of  American  states- 
men and  writers,  286  sqq. 

Bible,  the— /Av  Influence  on  Indi- 
vidual Souls :  significant  mo- 
ments in  life,  291 ;  story  of  St. 
Augustine's  conversion,  292 sq.; 
Martin  Luther,  294;  St.  Fran- 
cis Xavier,    295;    Dr.    Living- 


344 


INDEX 


stone,  296;  endless  proof  of 
the  transcendent  power  of 
Scripture  over  the  soul,  297 

Bible,  the— T/(e  Chief  Source  of 
Human  Consolation:  pain  and 
anguish  common  to  mankind, 
298 ;  peace  amidst  unrest  can 
be  learnt  from  the  Book  of  God, 
299 ;  the  influence  of  faith,  300  ; 
joy  amid  affliction  illustrated 
by  the  career  of  St.  Paul,  301 ; 
the  martyrs :  even  the  young, 
302  sq.;  St.  Perpetua,  303; 
Savonarola,  304;  John  Huss, 
305;  Margaret  Lachlan  and 
Margaret  Wilson,  305  sq. ; 
Scotch  martyrs,  306;  an  inci- 
dent in  the  Indian  Mutiny,  306 
sq. ;  Captain  Grardiner  and  his 
companions,  on  Picton  Island, 
307  sq. ;  the  victims  of  the 
earthquake  in  Manilla,  308  sq.  ; 
the  young  American  soldier  in 
the  Civil  War,  309;  special 
consolations :  in  bereavement, 
311 ;  in  sickness,  the  case  of 
Father  Damien,  313 ;  in  busi- 
ness anxieties,  ih.  ;  under  the 
attacks  of  calumny  and  slander, 
314  sq. ;  in  heavy  losses,  315 ; 
in  national  disaster,  316 ;  in  re- 
ligious despondency,  316  sq. ; 
disobedience,  repentance,  for- 
giveness :  God  yearns  to  show 
compassion,  318 

Bible,  the— /te  Influence  on  the 
Nations :  the  Jews,  321 ;  the 
Goths,  322;  Germany,  323; 
England :  what  the  Bible  has 
done  for  it,  323  sqq. ;  the  United 
States,  325;  Tahiti,  New  Zea- 
land, 326 ;  the  North  American 
Indians,  ib. ;  growth  of  Chris- 
tianity in  Japan,  326  sq. ;  the 
inhabitants  of  Pitcairn's  Island, 
327  sq. ;  the  blessing  of  an 
open  Bible,  329;  the  ways  in 
which  the  Scripture  brings 
blessings  are  mamf old,  330 ;  its 


matchless  Table  of  Contents, 
331 ;  blessings  enumerated  by 
St.  Paul,  ih.  ;  instruction,  ih.  ; 
Divine  adaptability  of  the 
Bible,  332 ;  the  spirit  in  which 
it  should  he  read,  333;  verses 
of  the  Psalms  quoted  on  his- 
torical occasions,  334  sq. ; 
value  set  by  great  men  on  the 
Psalter,  336 ;  the  preciousness 
of  the  New  Testament,  337 

Bigots  of  Wigtown,  the  (1677), 
305  sq. 

'  Binding '  and  '  loosing ' :  their 
meaning  to  the  Jews,  227  w., 
228 

Blackstone,  Judge :  the  Bible  is 
'part  of  the  Common  Law  of 
England,'  285 

Bleek :  on  our  Lord's  reference  to 
Jonah,  258 

Boniface  VIII. :  ground  of  his 
claim  to  temporal  power,  224 

Bossuet :  object  of  his  '  Discours 
sur  I'Histoire  universelle,'  173 

Brooks,  Bishop  Phillips :  on 
speaking  the  truth,  141 

Browning,  Robert :  his  loving 
and  reverent  allusions  to  the 
Bible,  281 

Bruce,  Professor  A.  B.  :  instances 
of  'crude  morality'  in  the 
Bible,  203 

Buffon :  his  persecution  by  the 
Sorbonne,  165 

Bunyan,  John :  account  of  his 
state  of  despondency,  316  sq. 

Burgon,  Dean :  on  the  complete 
supernaturaLness  of  the  Bible, 
69 

Burke,  Edmund:  'the  Bible  is 
not  a  book,  but  a  literature,' 
285 

Burnes,  Lieutenant :  sufferings  in 
the  Indian  Mutiny,  306 

Burnet,  Thomas:  his  'Telluris 
Theoria  Sacra,'  162 

Burnett,  Dr. :  on  priestly  absolu- 
tion, 227  n. 


INDEX 


345 


Butler,  Archer:  on  'eternal  tor- 
ments/ 6 

Butler,  Bishop :  on  the  use  of 
reason  in  judging  of  revelation, 
3;  on  undiscovered  truths  in 
the  Bible,  44;  on  the  wars  of 
extermination  of  the  Bible,  186 ; 
on  the  use  of  reason  in  matters 
of  revelation,  211 

Caine,  Mr.  Hall :  his  acknowledg- 
ment of  his  indebtedness  to  the 
Bible,  282 

Calixt,  Georg:  on  the  epithet  'di- 
vine' as  applied  to  Scripture,  148 

Calovius :  on  the  Greek  of  the 
New  Testament,  106 

Calumny,  Scripture  consolations 
to  the  sufferers  from,  314 

Calvin :  on  the  Imprecatory 
Psalms,  99 ;  his  misunderstand- 
ing of  the  Old  Testament,  100 ; 
protested  against  the  heliocen- 
tric system,  163 

Canaanites :  their  mercantile 
quarter  in  Jerusalem,  183 

Canon  :  name  originally  confined 
to  the  Creed,  37  n. 

Canon  of  the  Bible,  the,  history 
of,  27  tiqq.  ;  the  Old  Testament, 
31 ;  the  New  Testament,  34 ; 
books  that  were  absent  from  the 
early  Canon  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, 34  sq.  ;  the  authority  on 
which  we  receive  the  Canon 
of  our  Scriptures,  35 ;  various 
Canons,  151  sq. 

Carlstadt :  his  ignorance  of  the 
Bible  in  his  youth,  210 

Carlyle,  T.  :  on  inspiration  of 
great  men,  119;  on  revelation 
through  history,  173 ;  the  Book 
that  contains  '  a  response  to 
whatever  is  deepest  in  man's 
heart,'  279 

Cartwright,  Thomas :  how  the 
books  of  the  Bible  are  discerned 
to  be  the  word  of  God,  142 ;  his 
intolerance,  144 


Cassiodorus :  on  priestly  absolu- 
tion, 228  n. 

Catholic  faith,  the  :  definition  of 
the  expression,  10 

Celsus :  objected  to  the  story  of 
Lot,  237  n. 

Ceremonial  Judaism,  Christ's 
treatment  of,  96  sqq. 

Cerinthus :  the  Book  of  Revela- 
tion attributed  to  him,  34 

Chananyah  ben  Hezekiah,  Rabbi, 
32 

Chapters,  the  division  of  the  Bible 
into,  221 

Charles  V.  (Spain) :  decree 
against  the  reading  of  the 
Bible,  212 

Charles  IX.  (France) :  author  of 
the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew, 198 

Chaucer :  influence  of  the  Bible 
on  his  poems,  262 

Chillingworth :  on  men's  treat- 
ment of  the  Word  of  God,  20 ; 
on  'using  diligence  to  find 
truths,'  129 ;  criticism  of  his 
saying  that  '  the  Bible  only  is 
the  religion  of  Protestants,'  170 
sqq. 

Christian  blood  shed  by  Christians 
on  the  ground  of  religion,  the 
first,  196 

Christianity :  its  fundamental 
truths  not  to  be  confounded 
with  disputable  opinions,  11, 
13,  14 ;  need  of  the  simplifica- 
tion and  epuration  of  religion, 
14 ;  new  truths  and  advancing 
knowledge  are  a  continuous 
revelation,  15 ;  the  true  atti- 
tude of  Christians  towards  the 
Bible,  16 ;  question  of  '  inspira- 
tion,' 16;  mischief  of  'exor- 
bitant inferences'  from  Scrip- 
ture, 22 

Chronicles  (of  King  David ;  of 
the  Kings  of  Israel ;  of  the 
Kings  of  Judali)  :  lost  books 
quoted  in  the  Old  Testament,  40 


346 


INDEX 


Chrysostom,  St. :  condemned  the 
excesses  of  mystical  interpreta- 
tion, 76  n. ;  rejected  the  Apo- 
calypse, 152;  upheld  religious 
tolerance,  197  ;  his  explanation 
of  the  text  'Thou  art  Peter' 
&c.,  225;  on  the  clearness  of 
what  is  necessary  in  Scripture, 
232 

Church  of  England :  its  teaching 
on  the  Scriptures,  17 

Cicero :  on  inspiration  of  great 
minds,  120 

Civil  War  in  America,  touching 
incident  in  the,  309 

Clarke  :  his  theory  of  inspiration, 
123 

Clemens  Eomanus  :  treatment  of 
the  Old  Testament,  125  n. 

Clement,  Epistles  of,  29  n.,  41  n. 

Clement,  Jacques,  murderer  of 
Henry  III.  :  applauded  by  Six- 
tus  v.,  202 

Clement  VIII.  :  withdrew  the  li- 
cense- to  read  the  Bible  in  the 
vulgar  tongue,  213  n. 

Clement  XI. :  condemned  Ques- 
nel's  opinion  in  favour  of  read- 
ing the  Bible,  212  n. 

Cloyne,  Bishop  of:  the  Divine 
authority  for  making  known 
the  Scriptures,  329 

Cochlaeus  :  denounced  the  spread 
of  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures, 
213 

Coleridge,  Hartley :  on  the  phrase 
'Word  of  God,' 146 

Coleridge,  S.  T. :  on  mosaics  of 
Scripture  texts,  22  ;  on  the  doc- 
trine of  Biblical  infallibility, 
163 ;  on  the  '  whimsical  sub- 
inteUigiturs  of  our  numerous 
harmonists,'  220;  the  Bible 
goes  '  hand  in  hand  with  civil- 
isation, science,  law,'  278 

Collins  (the  poet) :  the  New  Tes- 
tament his  constant  compan- 
ion, 277 

Commentators,  vagaries  of,  66 


Como,  witches  burnt  at,  194 

'  Complutensian  Polyglot, 'the,  108 

Composite  books  in  the  Bible,  39 

'  Concomitant '  inspiration,  122 

Confessions  of  the  Eeformed 
Churches:  declare  that  the 
Scriptures  contain  the  word  of 
God,  148  n. 

Conscience,  as  one  of  God's  meth- 
ods of  revealing  Himself,  177 

'Consequent'  inspiration,  122 

Consolation,  human,  the  Bible  a 
chief  source  of,  298  sqq. 

ConsTibstantiation,  the  doctrine 
of,  228  sq. 

Copernicus:  his  system  opposed 
by  various  religious  teachers, 
163,  164 

Coronation  Service:  the  presen- 
tation of  the  Bible  to  the  Queen, 
283  «. 

Cosmas  Indicopleustes :  his  *To- 
pographia  Christiana,'  162 

'  Covenant,  the  Book  of  the,'  40  n. 

Cowper,  William :  on  the  value  of 
a  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures, 
277 

Creation,  the  narrative  of,  in  Ge- 
nesis, 165  sq. 

CulverweU :  on  the  dignity  of 
reason,  211 

Dabhar,  meaning  of,  in  Scrip- 
ture, 172 

Damascene,  John :  on  the  '  oracles 
of  God,'  146 ;  the  '  Word  of  God,' 
147 

Damien,  Father:  his  work  and 
death  among  the  lepers,  313 

Dana,  Mr. :  '  of  all  books,  the 
Bible  is  the  most  indispensable 
and  the  most  useful,'  288 

Dante :  influence  of  the  Bible  on 
his  works,  262 

Darwin,  Mr. :  attacks  on  his  the- 
ory of  evolution,  167 

David :  the  Imprecatory  Psalms, 
78 ;  his  character,  85 ;  his  atone- 
ment to  the  Gibeonites,  87 

Davison,  Professor:  on  the  New 
Testament  writers'  use  of  the 


INDEX 


347 


Old  Testament,  48  n. ;  on  the 
unity  of  the  Bible,  136 

Decretals  of  Isidore,  the,  226 

De  Musset,  Alfred:  his  love  of 
the  New  Testament,  273 

Despondency,  Scripture  consola- 
tions for,  316  sq. 

De  Wette:  on  oiir  Lord's  refer- 
ence to  Jonah,  258 

Diatheke:  meaning  of  the  word, 
37  n.,  38 

Dickens,  Charles:  'the  New  Tes- 
tament is  the  best  book  that 
ever  was  or  will  be  known,'  279 

Didache,  the,  41  n. 

Difficulties  in  the  Scriptures,  235 
nqq. 

Digby,  Everard:  his  approval  of 
the  Gunpowder  Plot,  202 

Dionysius  of  Alexandria :  on  the 
Book  of  Revelation,  34 

'Disputed  Books'  {Antilegoniena), 
29 

Divine  right  of  kings,  the  doctrine 
of,  201 

Divorce,  Christ's  treatment  of,  97 

Doddridge  :  his  theory  of  inspira- 
tion, 123 

DoUinger:  his  theory  of  inspira- 
tion, 123 

Dominicans :  their  defence  of  per- 
secution, 197  H. 

Donation  of  Constantine,  the,  226 

Driver,  Professor:  on  'inspira- 
tion,' 121 :  on  our  Lord's  treat- 
ment of  the  Old  Testament,  139 

Diiff,  Dr. :  his  Christian  bearing 
under  a  severe  loss,  315  sq. 

'  Dynamic '  theory  of  inspiration, 
121 

Edward  IV.  :  origin  of  his  cogni- 
sance, 246 

Edward  VL:  the  Bible  is  'the 
sword  of  the  Spirit,'  283 

Edwards,  Jonathan :  on  'new  dis- 
coveries,' 141 

'Eg3'ptiaus,  the  Gospel  to  the,' 
41  II. 

Ehud  and  Jael,  the  example  of, 
appealed  to  by  regicides,  203 


Eichhom :  on  the  meaning  of  the 
'Higher  Criticism,'  133  h. 

Elisha,  the  prophet :  on  the  treat- 
ment of  captives,  186 

Elmslie,  Professor:  on  the  story 
of  Jonah,  252  n. 

Emerson,  R.  W. :  his  eulogy  of 
the  Bible,  272 

England:  treatment  of  witches, 
194;  the  blessings  it  has  re- 
ceived through  the  Bible,  323 
sqq. 

'Enoch,  the  Book  of,'  28  «.,  258 

'  Epistolee  Obscurorum  Virorum,' 
209 

Erasmus:  his  theory  of  inspira- 
tion, 123 ;  specimens  of  igno- 
rance of  the  Bible  given  by 
him,  210 

Erskine  of  Linlatheu :  on  God's 
method  of  teaching,  129 

Eternal  torments,  the  so-called 
'  doctrine '  of,  5  sqq. ;  grounded 
on  misunderstood  or  distorted 
texts,  230  sqq. 

Ethnic  inspiration:  meaning  of 
the  term,  115 

Eugenius  IV. :  edict  against 
witches,  193 

Evolution,  the  theory  of :  attacks 
on  it  by  theologians,  167 

Ewald,  Heinrich  von :  on  Jonah, 
255  ».,  258;  his  intense  admira- 
tion of  the  New  Testament,  266 

Exhibition  of  1851 :  the  motto 
chosen  for  it  by  Prince  Albert, 
336 

Ezra :  the  assertion  that  he  fixed 
the  Canon,  32 

Faber,  F.  W.  :  on  the  beauty  and 
saeredness  of  the  English  Bible, 
269 

Fairbairn,  Dr. :  on  the  Higher 
Criticism,  134  n. 

Faith :  its  influence  on  life,  300 

Falkland,  Lord :  on  the  use  of 
reason  in  the  interpretation  of 
Scripture,  129 

Fall,  the  story  of  the :  an  '  inter- 
pretation,' 242  sq. 


348 


INDEX 


Fall  of  the  Angels:  a  Jewish 
myth,  258 

Faraday,  Michael :  esteem  of  the 
Bible  as  a  guide,  274 

Fasting,  the  efficacy  of :  grounded 
on  perverted  texts,  230 

Fathers,  the  :  titles  used  by  them 
for  the  Scriptures,  23 

Felix  V. :  explanation  of  the  text 
'  Thou  art  Peter,'  &c.,  226 

Fichte :  on  inspiration  of  great 
men,  119;  the  revelation  of  God 
through  the  facts  of  history, 
173 

Filioque:  the  Greek  and  Latin 
Churches'  dispute  about,  12 

Fitzroy,  Mr. :  on  the  treatment  of 
'inspiration'  by  the  Westmin- 
ster Assembly  of  1643,  18  n. 

Fleck:  definition  of  religion,  171 

Fox,  George :  the  oceans  of  Dark- 
ness and  Light,  312 

Fra  Angelico :  influence  of  the 
Bible  on  his  pictures,  263 

Froude,  J.  A. :  '  the  Bible  is  a  lit- 
erature of  itself,'  281 

Fulk  of  Toulouse :  his  cruelties, 
195 

Fuller,  Thomas:  his  condemna- 
tion of  mystical  interpretation, 
77  «. ;  on  the  Imprecatory 
Psalms,  99  n. 

'  Gad  the  Seer,  the  Book  of,'  40 
Galileo :  held  that  science  is  not 

mentioned    in  the  Scriptures, 

157 ;  his  persecution  by  Rome, 

164 
Gardiner,  Captain  A.  F.,  and  his 

companions:    their    death    by 

starvation    on    Picton    Island 

(1851),  307  sq. 
Garrison,  W.  Lloyd:  power  of  the 

Bible  in  our  warfare   against 

evil,  288 
Gaussen:  authority  of  the  Bible 

in  scientific  matters,  161 
Gehenna:  its  meaning  in  Jewish 

theology,  231 
Geiger  (Jewish  scholar):  on  the 

text  of  the  Pentateuch,  65  ». 


*  General '  inspiration,  theory  of, 
122 

Gentiles,  the :  sources  from  which 
they  received  moral  truths,  177 

Geology,  the  science  of :  attacks 
on  by  religious  teachers,  165 

George  III.,  an  apophthegm  of, 
330 

Gerard,  Balthasar,  murderer  of 
William  of  Orange,  202 

Germany:  the  blessings  brought 
to  it  by  a  knowledge  of  the 
Bible,  323 

Gibeonites,  the :  Saul's  treatment 
of,  and  David's  atonement,  87 

Gtrdlestone,  Canon:  on  mistreat- 
ment of  the  Bible,  10 

Gladstone,  Mr. :  on  the  criticism 
of  the  Scriptures,  46 ;  on  Bibli- 
cal difficulties,  136  ;  on  inspira- 
tion, 137  n.  ;  the  supremacy  of 
the  Bible,  and  its  unfailing  help 
in  all  circumstances,  285 ;  eulo- 
gy of  the  Psalms,  336  sq. 

Gnostics:  their  treatment  of  the 
Old  Testament,  58  «. 

Godet,  M. :  on  the  characteristics 
of  Biblical  writers,  104  sq. 

Godfrey  of  Bouillon,  190 

Goethe :  on  the  moral  teaching  of 
the  Bible,  189  n. ;  the  benefit  of 
free  circulation  of  the  Bible, 
259 ;  the  Bible  meets  all  wants 
and  circumstances  of  every  life, 
270  sq. ;  intrinsic  value  of  the 
Bible,  271;  its  place  in  educa- 
tion, ih. ;  testimony  to  the  bene- 
fits which  the  Bible  has  be- 
stowed on  Germany,  323  «. 

Gomer-bath-Diblaim  (Hosea's 
wife),  239  sq. 

Goodwin,  John :  '  many  truths  yet 
unborne,'  44 

Grant,  General :  '  the  Bible  is  the 
sheet-anchor  to  our  liberties,' 
288 

Gratian :  slain  by  Maximus,  196 

Great  Synagogue,  the,  32 

Green,  J.  H. :  on  the  influence  of 
the  Bible  on  England,  in  Eliza- 
beth's reign,  282 


INDEX 


349 


Greg,  Mr.  W.  R. :  definition  of  in- 
spiration, 120  n. 

Gregory  of  Nazianzus,  St. :  on 
the  authority  of  Councils,  36; 
taught  religious  tolerance,  197 

Gregory  of  Nyssa :  on  '  the  corpo- 
real veil  of  speech  in  the  Scrip- 
tures,' 145 ;  on  the  story  of 
Babel,  244 

Gregory  the  Great:  doctrine  of 
verbal  dictation  of  Scripture, 
106 

Gregory  XIII. :  joy  over  the  Mas- 
sacre of  St.  Bartholomew,  199 

Grotius :  his  theory  of  inspiration, 
123;  his  statistics  of  Alva's 
butcheries,  198 

Gunpowder  Plot,  the :  sanctioned 
by  Romanist  divines,  202 

Hagenbach  :  on  the  human  com- 
position of  the  Bible,  126 

Haggadah,  the:  meaning  of  the 
word.  111 

Hagiographa :  meaning  of  the 
word,  31  n.,  33 

Halacha,  the:  meaning  of  the 
word,  111 

Hale,  Sir  Matthew:  believed  in 
witchcraft,  194 ;  advised  daily 
reading  of  the  Scriptures,  285 

Hallam :  on  Whiston's  '  New  The- 
ory of  the  Earth,'  162 

Handel:  influence  of  the  Bible 
on  his  music,  263 

Haphtaroth:  meaning  of  the  term, 
221 

Hebrews,  Epistle  to  the :  ancient 
doubts  of  its  canonicity,  35 

'Hebrews,  the  Gospel  to  the,' 
41  ». 

Heine,  Heinrich :  description  of 
the  Old  Testament,  89;  his  last- 
ing admiration  of  the  Bible, 
264 

Heliocentric  theory :  opposed  by 
various  religious  teachers,  162, 
164 

Helvetic  Confession,  the  (1675): 
on  inspiration  of  the  Hebrew 
Bible,  105 


Henry  IH.  (France),  the  murder 
of,  202 

Henry  FV.  (France),  the  murder 
of,  202 

Henry  VI. :  an  assiduous  reader 
of  the  Bible,  283 

Henry  VIII. :  his  treatment  of  the 
translated  Bible,  324 

Heracleides  of  Pontus  :  his  work 
'  On  the  Allegories  of  Homer,' 
67 

Heracleon  (Gnostic  commentator 
on  Scripture),  67  n. 

Herbert,  George :  his  poem  on  the 
Bible,  276 

Hermas,  the  'Shepherd'  of,  29?;., 
41  n. 

Herrick:  use  of  'inspiration,'  116 

Higher  Criticism,  the :  the  right 
position  towards,  45 ;  its  origin 
and  principles,  133  sqq. 

High  Priest,  the  Jewish :  his  offi- 
cial dress,  292 

Historv,  the  revelation  of  God  in, 
172  ■ 

Hitzig:  on  Jonah,  255  n. 

Holbeach :  definition  of  religion, 
170 

Hollar :  on  the  Greek  of  the  New 
Testament,  106 

Homologoumena,  meaning  of,  29 
sq. 

Hooker,  Eichard:  on  the  true 
bases  of  the  claims  of  Scrip- 
ture, 21  sq. ;  his  condemnation 
of  mystical  interpretation,  77 
71. ;  on  the  authority  of  Reason, 
134;  on  the  evil  of  disguising 
the  truth,  140;  on  the  use  of 
private  judgment,  211 ;  on  the 
Scripture  as  a  guide  to  know- 
ledge, 274 

Hooper:  eulogy  of  the  Psalms, 
336 

Horsley,  Bishop:  interpretation 
of  the  Fall,  242 

Hosea,  the  story  of:  an  interpre- 
tation, 239  sq. 

Howard,  John :  his  love  for  the 
suffering  learnt  from  the  Bible, 
262 


350 


INDEX 


Howitt,  IVIr. :  on  perverted  inter- 
pretation of  the  Bible,  102 

Hugo,  Victor :  on  '  the  infinitude 
of  hope,'  299 

Human  race,  the  history  of:  an 
apologue,  298 

Human  sacrifices,  83 

Humboldt,  W.  von :  on  God's  gov- 
ernment of  the  world,  173 

Huss,  John :  account  of  his  death 
by  fire,  305 

Huxley,  Professor:  the  essence 
of  religion,  170,  171;  pleaded 
for  the  use  of  the  Bible  in 
teaching  children,  267 ;  '  the 
Bible  has  been  the  Magna 
Charta  of  the  poor  and  of  the 
oppressed,'  268 

Hystaspes:  inspiration  attributed 
to,  by  the  Fathers,  125 

Idacius,  Bishop :  a  religious  per- 
secutor, 182 

'Iddo  the  Seer,  the  Vision  of,' 
40 

Idomeneus,  the  vow  of,  85 

Ignatius,  St. :  the  source  of  his 
strength  to  endure  martyrdom, 
303  sq. 

'Illumination'  theory  of  inspira- 
tion, 122 

'Imitatio  Christi,'  the:  on  the 
right  way  to  read  Scripture, 
232  ;  object  of  its  author,  262 

Imprecatory  Psalms,  the,  78 

Incarnation,  the  miracle  of  the, 
242 

'  Index  Expurgatorius ' :  its  insti- 
tution, 211  n. 

Indian  Mutiny,  the:  Scriptural 
consolation  afiforded  to  suffer- 
ers, 306  sq. 

Infallibility,  Biblical :  accepted 
by  Eeformed  Churches,  153; 
dangerous  results  of  the  doc- 
trine, 158  sqq. 

Innocent  III. :  his  ruthlessness 
towards  the  Albigenses,  190; 
denunciation  of  clerical  igno- 
rance, 209 ;  forbade  the  reading 
of  the  Bible,  210  n.  ;  ground  of 


his  claim  to  be  superior  to  the 
Emperor,  209 

Innocent  VIII. :  action  against 
witches,  193 ;  his  character,  227 

Inquisition,  the :  its  systematic 
deceit  towards  heretics,  190  «.  / 
false  Biblical  base  of  its  tor- 
tures, 195 ;  its  upholders  at  the 
present  day,  196,  200  «. 

'Inspiration'  of  the  Bible:  opin- 
ions on  the  question,  16  ;  Rab- 
binical treatment,  19  ?;.;  mean- 
ing of  'inspiration,'  114;  vari- 
ous Greek  expressions  for  it,  114 
n. ;  no  Church  definition  of  its 
nature  or  limits,  117;  Scriptu- 
ral use  of  the  idea,  118,  121; 
theories  of  inspiration,  121 

Instrnmentum  (name  applied  to 
the  books  of  the  Bible),  37  n. 

Intolerance,  the  Romish  doctrine 
of,  13 

Irenaeus,  St. :  his  erroneous  teach- 
ing on  the  Atonement,  11 ;  on 
the  abeyance  {to  7]avxaZ,Eiv)  of 
the  Di\dne  word,  139. 

Isolated  texts :  their  influence  on 
individual  souls,  292  sqq. 

Ithacius,  Bishop :  a  religious  per- 
secutor, 182 

Jackson,  President  Andrew :  the 
Bible  is  '  the  rock  on  which  our 
Republic  rests,'  286 

Jackson,  Sir  Mountstuart :  suffer- 
ings in  the  Indian  Mutiny,  306 

Jael,  the  story  of,  74 

Jamnia  (Jabneh),  the  Synod  of, 
33-35 

Japan ,  the  growth  of  Christianity 
in,  326  sq. 

'  Jasher,  the  Book  of,'  40,  247 

Jephthah,  story  of,  84 

Jerome,  St. :  called  the  Bible  '  a 
divine  library,'  27;  on  the  lit- 
erarv  style  of  Biblical  writers, 
104  n. 

Jesuits :  their  active  cruelty 
against  witches,  193 

Jews,  the  moral  standard  of  the 
ancient,  183 ;  the  blessings  they 


INDEX 


351 


derived  from  the  Scriptures, 
321 

John  n.  (Castile):  a  constant 
Bible  reader,  283 

Johnson,  Dr.:  his  Scriptural  al- 
lusions, 276 

Jonah,  the  story  of,  250;  the 
whale,  252 ;  meaning  of  the  al- 
legory, 253  sq.;  the  'sign'  of 
Jonah,  257 

Jones,  Sir  "William :  on  the  su- 
premacy of  the  Bible,  277 

Josephus  :  his  arrangement  of  the 
Canon,  27  n.;  allusion  to  the 
day  when  the  sun  '  stood  still,' 
250  «. 

Joshua:  the  'standing  still'  of 
the  sun,  246;  interpretation, 
247  sq. 

'Jubilees,  the  Book  of,'  65  w. 

Jude,  Epistle  of:  ancient  doubts 
of  its  canonicity,  34 

Justin  MartjT:  his  method  of 
using  the  Gospels,  42 ;  the  Lo- 
gos spermatikos,  115 

Kabbalists,  the,  169 

Kant :  definition  of  religion,  170 ; 
on  the  moral  teaching  of  the 
Bible,  189 ;  sarcasm  on  misuse 
of  Scripture,  206 

Keil :  his  explanation  of  the  sun 
'  standing  still,'  2i9  u. 

Ken,  Bishop  :  on  the  death  of  So- 
crates, 179  sq. 

Kepler :  opposed  by  ecclesiastical 
ignorance,  163 

Kethubim,  31  «.,  33,  122 

Knighton  (the  chronicler) :  cursed 
Wycliffe  for  spreading  the 
knowledge  of  the  Bible,  214 

Kueuen,  Professor :  his  admira- 
tion of  the  Hebrew  prophets,  273 

Lachlan,  Margaret :  account  of 
her  cruel  death,  305 

Lactantius :  on  inspiration  of 
great  men,  120;  denied  that 
the  world  is  round,  162 ;  upheld 
religious  tolerance,  197 


Langton,  Archbishop  Stephen : 
first  divided  the  Bible  into 
chapters,  221 

Language, '  coarseness '  of :  a  rela- 
tive term,  237  sq. 

Laodicea,  Synod  of,  34  «.,  35 

Lasco,  John  a,  100 

Law,  the,  and  the  Prophets,  anti- 
theses of,  92 

'Law,  the  Book  of  the,'  meaning 
of,  25,  26 

Law,  the  Mosaic,  Christ's  treat- 
ment of,  97  sqq. 

Lecky,  Mr. :  on  the  persecuting 
spirit  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
199  «. ;  'Anglicanism  the  ser- 
vile agent  of  tj-ranny,'  201 

Le  Clerc :  his  theory  of  inspira- 
tion, 123 

Leigh,  Senator  W.  B.  (Virginia) : 
the  Bible  is  '  the  code  of  ethics 
for  every  Christian  country,' 
287 

'Lekach  Tobh,'  the  (Jewish 
book),  68 

Leo  XIII.  :  his  doctrine  that  '  the 
true  sense  of  Scripture  cannot 
be  foimd  outside  the  Church,' 
210  n. 

Lessing :  '  the  Bible  is  not  reli- 
gion,' 171 ;  his  esteem  for  the 
Bible,  270 

Leucius  (author  of  '  The  Travels 
of  the  Apostles'),  41  h. 

Literature,  national,  profound  in- 
fluence of  the  Bible  upon,  56, 
325 

Livingstone,  Dr. :  account  of  his 
conversion,  291 

Locke,  John  :  on  reason  and  rev- 
elation, 3  ;  the  use  of  reason  in 
seeking  truth,  131 

Logos  spermatikos :  meaning  of 
the  term,  115 

Longinus  :  acknowledged  the  sub- 
limity of  the  Bible,  262 

LoiTaine,  Cardinal  of :  joy  at  the 
Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew, 
199 


352 


INDEX 


Lot,  the  story  of,  237 ;  an  expla- 
nation, 238 

Louis,  St.  :  his  delight  in  the 
Bible,  283 

Louise,  Queen  (Prussia) :  her  con- 
solation after  the  calamity  of 
Jena,  316 

Lowth,  Bishop :  his  theory  of  in- 
spiration, 123 

Loyola,  Ignatius  :  his  influence  on 
Francis  Xavier,  295 

Lushington,  Dr.  :  statement  of 
the  Church's  teaching  about 
the  Scriptures,  17  n. 

Luther :  his  treatment  of  the 
Canon,  30  ;  on  the  authority  of 
Councils,  36 ;  on  antitheses  in 
St.  Paul's  and  St.  James's  Epis- 
tles, 93 ;  view  of  Moses,  96 ;  on 
'Thus  saith  the  Lord,'  131  n.  ; 
'  God  does  not  speak  grammati- 
cal vocables,'  146,  172 ;  his  use 
of  'the  word  of  God,'  147;  on 
Biblical  difficulties,  187 ;  on  lib- 
erty of  thought,  197 ;  his  early 
ignorance  of  the  Bible,  209; 
his  doctrine  of  consubstantia- 
tion,  228  sq. ;  account  of  his 
waking  to  faith,  294  sq. 

Lyons :  the  St.  Bartholomew 
butchery  at,  199 

Macaulay:  on  the  Church  of 
England  under  the  Stuarts, 
201 ;  on  the  immoral  teaching 
of  Romish  casuists,  202;  his 
appreciation  of  the  English 
Bible,  278 

Mackennal,  Rev.  A. :  supernatu- 
ral sanctity  does  not  belong  to 
the  entire  contents  of  the  Bible, 
145 

Maimonides :  on  the  inspiration 
of  the  Law,  122  n. 

Major,  George :  his  '  De  Origine 
et  Auctoritate  Verbi  Dei,'  147 

Maktesh,  meaning  of,  183 

Manichees :  specimen  of  their 
perversion  of  Scripture,  224 


Manilla,  the  earthquake  at  (1863), 
308 

Marcion :  his  treatment  of  the  Old 
Testament,  58  n. ;  his  'Antithe- 
ses,' 93 ;  his  views  on  the  origin 
of  the  Old  Testament,  94 

Mariana  (Romanist  divine) :  ap- 
proval of  regicide,  202 

Marsh,  Bishop  Herbert :  on  the 
use  of  reason  in  the  study  of 
the  Bible,  211 

Martin  of  Tours,  St.  :  protested 
against  religious  persecution, 
197  sq. 

Martin  V.  :  treatment  of  the  re- 
mains of  Wycliffe,  323 

Martineau,  Dr.  :  on  David's  atone- 
ment to  the  Gibeonites,  88 

Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew, 
the,  198  sq. 

Maurice,  Professor:  on  faith  in 
the  Bible,  10 

Maximus  :  a  religious  persecutor, 
196 

Mediaeval  clergy :  example  of 
their  ignorance,  207  sqq. 

MegUloth,  meaning  of,  33  n. 

Melanehthon :  on  the  ignorance 
of  the  Romanist  clergy,  210 

Mendelssohn :  influence  of  the 
Bible  on  his  music,  263 

Mendoza  (Romanist  divine) :  ap- 
proval of  regicide,  202 

Metaphors,  distorted,  examples 
of,  231 

Michael  the  Archangel :  myth  of 
his  dispute'  with  the  devil,  258 

Mill,  J.  S.  :  on  'eternal  torments,' 
6 ;  on  the  opposition  of  religious 
teachers  to  new  truths,  160 

Milman,  Dean :  on  religious  per- 
secution, 195  n. 

Milton  :  his  use  of  the  word  '  in- 
spire,' 116;  on  the  Gentile 
Imowledge  of  right,  144 ;  on 
the  progress  of  truth,  212 ;  in- 
fluence of  the  Bible  on  him, 
262 ;  his  admiration  and  love 
of  the  Scriptures,  274 


INDEX 


353 


Miracles  of  the  Bible,  the,  240  sq. 

Misinterpretation  of  ycriptui'e : 
examples  of  its  evils,  190  sqq., 
200,  203  sqq.,  224  n.  ;  wresting 
of  texts,  218  sqq. 

Molokai  (Sandwich  Islands),  the 
lepers  of,  312  sq. 

Moosonee,  Bishop  of:  on  the 
North  American  Indians'  love 
of  the  Bible,  326 

Morality,  the,  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, appreciation  of,  61 

Morley,  Mr.  J.  :  on  the  religious 
surroundings  of  Voltaii'e,  216 
sq. 

Mormons :  defend  polygamy  out 
of  the  Old  Testament,  203 

Mortimer's  Cross,  the  battle  of, 
246 

Moses :  cruel  injunctions  attri- 
buted to,  80;  the  kind  legisla- 
tion in  the  Law,  187 

Mozley,  Canon :  on  the  wars  of 
extermination  in  the  Bible,  183 
n.,  185  n.,  186 

Nachianti,  Bishop:  upheld,  at 
Trent,  the  final  authority  of 
Scripture,  152  n. 

Napoleon  I. :  his  eulogy  of  the 
Bible,  284 

'Nathan  the  Prophet,  the  Book 
of,'  40 

Nations,  the  influence  of  the  Bible 
upon  the,  320  sqq. 

Nature  :  how  it  leads  to  the  know- 
ledge of  God,  174  sq. ;  destruc- 
tion wrought  by  the  agencies 
of  nature,  184 ;  the  word  '  Na- 
ture '  meaningless  without  the 
word  'God,' 242 

Neander :  on  our  Lord's  refer- 
ence to  Jonah,  258 

Nebiim :  use  of  the  word,  31  n., 
33  n. 

Nehemiah,  the  'library '  of,  25  «., 
32  «. 

Netherlands,  the,  Alva's  butcher- 
ies in,  198 
23 


Newman,  Cardinal :  on  the  use  of 
reason,  3 ;  on  the  mystical  in- 
tei-pretation  of  Scripture,  76  n.; 
on  the  translated  Bible,  214; 
on  the  method  of  allegorical  in- 
terpretation, 223  n. ;  on  the 
light,  vastness,  and  variety  of 
the  Bible,  264;  the  source  of 
the  martjTs'  strength,  302  sq. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac :  on  the  sub- 
lime philosophy  of  the  Bible, 
276 

New  Zealand :  effects  of  EiT)le 
teaching  upon  the  natives,  326 

Nikke,  Bishop :  denounced  the 
spread  of  Tyndale's  translation, 
214 

Nineveh,  the  account  of,  in  the 
Book  of  Jonah,  254 

North  American  Indians,  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Bible  upon,  326 

'  Old  Covenant  ' :  meaning  of  the 
term,  38 

Olver,  Professor :  on  the  claim  of 
'divine  authority'  for  Scripture, 
152  n. 

Orange,  William  of,  the  murder 
of,  202 

'Organic'  theory  of  inspiration, 
121 

Origen :  his  invention  of  the 
'  threefold  sense '  of  Scripture, 
67  n.  ;  treatment  of  'the  letter 
killeth,'  70;  his  'mystic  econo- 
mies,' 72  ;  specimens  of  his  al- 
legory, 73 ;  on  the  variations  of 
the  Evangelists,  121  n.  ;  taught 
religious  tolerance,  197;  de- 
fended the  story  of  Lot,  237  n. 

Orosius :  the  great  principle  of 
his  History,  173 

Orr,  Mrs. :  siifferings  in  the  In- 
dian Mutiny,  306 

Orsino,  Cardinal :  joy  over  the 
massacre  at  Lyons,  199 

Owen,  John :  on  inspiration  of 
Scripture,  69 ;  protest  against 
the  'various  readings'  of  the 


354 


INDEX 


Complutensian  Polyglot,  108 ; 
rejected  the  system  of  Coper- 
nicus, 163 

Paley  :  his  theory  of  inspiration, 
123 

Papias,  Bishop  of  Hierapolis  :  his 
estimate  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, 42 ;  on  St.  Mark,  121  n. 

Paragraph  Bibles,  the  benefit  of, 
221 

Paroshoth  :  meaning  of  the  term, 
221 

Parker,  Theodore  (Unitarian) :  on 
the  universal  use  of  the  Bible, 
265  sq. 

Passive  obedience :  the  doctrine 
based  on  misused  Scripture 
texts,  200 

Passover,  the,  26 

Patriarchs,  the,  the  morality  of, 
83  sq. 

'  Paul,  the  Acts  of,'  41  n. 

Paul,  St.  :  his  treatment  of  the 
Law,  18  sq. ;  on  God  revealed 
through  the  history  of  the  na- 
tions, 173  ;  his  use  of  Rabbinic 
legends  and  Rabbinic  reason- 
ing, 258 ;  the  source  of  his  hope 
and  strength  amid  sufferings, 
301 ;  his  enumeration  of  the 
blessings  of  Scripture,  331 

Paul  IV.  :  placed  all  Bibles  in 
modern  languages  in  the  Index, 
211  n. 

Peabody,  George  :  his  love  of  the 
New  Testament,  290 

Pearson,  Bishop :  on  the  Proces- 
sion of  the  Holy  Ghost,  13 

Penance  :  the  Romanists'  errone- 
ous doctrine,  207  sq. 

Pentateuch,  a  collected,  no  evi- 
dence of  before  Ezra,  26;  its 
fragmentary  character,  40 

Perpetua,  St. :  her  martyrdom, 
303  sq. 

Perrone :  his  theory  of  inspira- 
tion, 123 

Persecution,  religious :  the  Bibli- 


cal texts  cited  in  its  support, 
195 ;  in  England,  201 

Peter  Lombard  :  taught  that  sci- 
ence holds  no  place  in  the 
Bible,  159 

'Peter,  the  Apocalypse  of,'  'the 
Gospel  of,'  and  'the  Preaching 
of,'  41  n. 

Peter,  St.  :  the  Roman  claim  for 
his  supremacy,  225  sq. 

Pfaff :  his  theory  of  inspiration,  123 

Pfeiffer :  his  '  Pansophia  Mosa- 
iea,'  162 

Philip  II.  (Spain) :  decree  against 
reading  the  Bible,  212 

Philo :  his  classification  of  Old 
Testament  writings,  27  7i.  ;  on 
the  'best  citizen,'  50;  errors 
arising  from  his  theory  of  in- 
spiration, 63  ;  treatment  of  the 
Pentateuch,  65  ;  adoption  of  the 
Stoic  method  of  allegorising 
Homer,  66 ;  treatment  of  de- 
fects in  the  letter  of  the  Law, 
70 ;  specimens  of  his  allegorical 
treatment,  73 ;  on  the  gift  of 
prophecy,  125 ;  on  misuse  of 
Scripture,  205 ;  on  the  story  of 
the  Fall,  242 

Phinehas,  Jewish  tradition  about, 
84 

Pico  of  Mirandola,  169 

Pilgrim  Fathers,  the  :  their  into- 
lerance, 101 ;  influence  of  the 
Bible  upon  them,  325 

Pitcairn's  Island  :  story  of  its  in- 
habitants, 327 ;  regenerated  by 
the  Bible,  328 

Pius  rv. :  granted  leave  to  read 
the  Bible  in  the  vulgar  tongue, 
213  n. 

Pius  V. :  his  approval  of  Alva's 
butcheries  in  the  Netherlands, 
198 

Pius  VII.  :  declared  the  reading 
of  the  Bible  in  the  vulgar 
tongue  to  be  harmful,  212 

Pius  IX. :  denounced  Bible  So- 
cieties as  'pests,'  212 


INDEX 


355 


Plato  :  definition  of  religion,  170 ; 
his  conception  of  God,  185 

'  Plenary  inspiration ' :  meaning 
of  the  term,  120 

Poetry,  English,  influence  of  the 
Bible  upon,  262 

Polygamy,  Christ's  treatment  of, 
97;  defended  by  appeal  to 
Scripture,  203 

Pomare  II.  (King  of  Tahiti) :  his 
manuscript  copy  of  St.  John's 
Gospel,  326 

Pope,  Alexander :  his  use  of  the 
word  'inspire,' 116;  his  Scrip- 
tural allusions,  276 

Pope,  Dr. :  on  the  '  di\'ine-himian ' 
collection  of  the  books  of  the 
Bible,  126 

Potern,  Professor  L.  S.  :  on  the 
personal  element  in  the  inspired 
writers,  138 

'Power  of  the  keys,'  the:  per- 
verted interpretation,  227 ; 
meaning  of  the  Jewish  meta- 
phor, 227  u. 

Priscillian  (Bishop  of  A\'ila) :  he 
and  his  followers  put  to  death 
as  heretics,  196 

Private  judgment :  necessity  of 
its  use,  211 

'Proof  texts,'  the  abuse  of,  221 

Prophets,  the :  meaning  of  their 
phrase  '  Thus  saith  the  Lord,' 
64 

Proverbs,  the  :  their  compilation, 
41 

Psalms,  the :  a  collection  of  sa- 
cred poems  of  very  various  an- 
tiquity, 40;  verses  from  them 
quoted  on  historic  occasions, 
334  sq.  ;  eulogies  of  the  Psalter, 
336 

Pusey,  Dr. :  on  the  Church's  doc- 
trine of  hell,  6 

Quenstedt:  on  the  infallibil- 
ity of  Scripture,  68;  on  the 
Greek  of  the  New  Testament, 
106 


Rabbis,  the :  their  methods  of 
exalting  the  Mosaic  Law,  19  xq. ; 
fixation  of  the  Canon,  31 

Raleigh,  Sir  W.  :  on  inspiration 
of  great  souls,  119 

Raphael :  influence  of  the  Bible 
on  his  pictui'es,  263 

Ravaillae,  murderer  of  Henry 
IV.,  202 

Reade,  Charles :  on  the  transcen- 
dent value  of  the  Scriptures, 
281 

Reformed  Churches  :  their  asser- 
tion of  Biblical  infallibility,  153 

Reformers,  the :  claimed  direct 
supernatui'al  dictation  for  the 
Bible,  105 

Religion  :  definition,  170 ;  lessons 
from  the  history  of,  179 

Religious  leaders,  influence  of  the 
Bible  upon,  262 

Remigius  (Jesuit) :  his  'Deemono- 
latreia,'  193 

Renan,  Ernest :  the  essence  of  re- 
ligion, 171 ;  '  the  Bible  is  the 
great  Book  of  Consolation  for 
Humanity,'  267,  299 

Ren4e,  Duchess  of  Ferrara :  on 
the  Imprecatory  Psalms,  99 

Resurrection,  the  miracle  of  the, 
242 

Reuben,  the  story  of,  238 

Reuchlin :  clerical  opposition  to 
his  Hebrew  lectures,  209 

Revelation,  the  Book  of :  ancient 
imeertainty  about  its  author,  34 

Revised  Version  of  the  Bible  :  pro- 
bably the  most  correct  transla- 
tion in  existence,  135 

Revised  Version  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament, the :  important  altera- 
tions in,  43 

Ehcma,  meaning  of,  in  Scripture, 
172 

Rizpah,  the  concubine  of  Saul,  88 

Robinson,  John :  on  growth  of 
light  and  truth,  44 

Rohnert,  Pastor :  on  the  Higher 
Criticism  in  Germany,  45 


356 


INDEX 


Romanists :  their  ignorance  of 
the  Scriptures,  208  sq. 

Eome,  Bishops  of :  the  growth  of 
their  usm-pation  of  autocracy, 
226 

Eome,  Church  of :  its  rule  of  Bib- 
lical interpretation,  152;  its 
interpretation  of  'Thou  art 
Peter'  &c.,  225;  and  of  'This 
is  My  body'  &c.,  229 

Eousseau,  J.  J. :  on  the  majesty 
and  the  holiness  of  the  Bible, 
270 

Euskin,  Mr. :  on  '  the  Word  of 
God,'  131;  his  acknowledg- 
ment of  his  indebtedness  to  the 
early  knowledge  of  the  Bible, 
279 ;  his  mother's  method  of 
teaching  him,  280 ;  on  the 
'matchless  Table  of  Contents 
of  the  Bible,'  331 ;  the  teach- 
ing of  the  119th  Psalm,  333 

Sabbath,  the,  Christ's  treatment 

of,  97 
Sabbatical  year,  the,  26 
Sacred  literature   of    the  Chris- 
tians in  the  earliest  centui'ies  : 

many  works  not  in  the  Canon, 

41 
Sacred  literature   of  the   Jews : 

Old    Testament  references   to 

books  now  lost,  39 
Samaritan  Pentateuch :   differed 

from  the  Hebrew,  65 
Sancto  Caro,  Hugo  de,  221 
Sansorio,  Cardinal :   praised  the 

Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew, 

198  H. 
Santa  Scala,  the  (Eome),  Luther's 

ascent  of,  294 
Savonarola :  account  of  his  death, 

304 
Scepticism :  causes  of  its  recent 

growth,  3,  7 
Schelling :  definition  of  religion, 

170 
Scheuchzer:   his   'Homo  diluvli 

testis,'  166 


Sehleiermacher :  his  theory  of  in- 
spiration, 122 

Schwenkenf  eld :  on  the  '  Word  of 
God,'  148 

Science  and  Eeligion,  conflicts 
between,  158  sqq. 

Scotch  Confession  (1560)  :  on  the 
authority  of  Scriptm'e,  37 

Scott,  Thomas :  his  theory  of  in- 
spiration, 123 

Scott,  Sir  W. :  the  Bible  is  '  the 
Book,'  278 

Sedarim :  meaning  of  the  term, 
221 

Sedgwick,  Professor:  attacks  on 
him  by  theologians,  165  n. 

Selden,  John :  the  Bible  '  the  stay 
of  his  soul,'  284 

Septuagint,  the,  29  n.,  33 ;  its  char- 
acter, 111 ;  number  of  quota- 
tions from  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, ib.;  inspiration  attri- 
buted to  by  the  Fathers,  125 

Serpent,  the,  in  Eden,  242 

Servetus,  the  burning  of,  100 

Servius  :  his  definition  of  religio, 
171  n. 

Seward,  Secretary :  '  human  pro- 
gress is  suspended  on  the  ever- 
gi'owing  influence  of  the  Bible, ' 
288 

Shaftesbury,  Lord :  his  love  of 
the  Bible,  262 

Shakespeare ;  influence  of  the 
Bible  on  his  plays,  262;  on 
God's  consolations  amid  vari- 
ous sorrows,  310  sq. 

Sharp,  Archbishop,  the  murder 
of,  306 

Shorter  Catechism,  the :  teaches 
that  the  word  of  God  is  con- 
tained in  the  Scriptures,  149 

Sibyls,  the :  inspiration  at- 
tributed to  by  the  Fathers,  125 

Sickness,  consolations  afforded 
by  Scriptui-e  in,  312 

Simon,  E.  :  his  theory  of  inspira- 
tion, 123 

Sin,    the    sense    of:    sufferings 


INDEX 


357 


under,  soothed  by  Scriptural 
consolations,  316 

Sixtus  Senensis  :  his  '  Bibliotheca 
Sancta,'  72 

Sixtus  V.  :  applauded  the  murder 
of  Henry  III.,  202 

Slavery,  Scriptural  defences  of, 
203 

Socrates:  his  opinion  of  allego- 
ries, 76 ;  his  death  for  the  cause 
of  virtue,  179 

'Song  of  Songs,'  the:  its  recep- 
tion into  the  Jewish  Canon,  31 

Spenser:  study  of  the  prophetic 
writings,  275 

Sprenger  (Dominican  monk) :  his 
'  Malleus  Maleficarum,'  193 ; 
his  derivations  of  '  Diabolus,' 
193  ti. 

Sruti  (from  Sruta  —  '  heard '),  the 
Sanskrit  for  'revelation,'  25  u. 

Stanley,  Dean :  the  reading  of 
the  Bible  as  a  source  of  instruc- 
tion, 26 ;  on  Ewald's  love  of  the 
New  Testament,  266 

Stephens,  Robert :  on  the  sources 
of  mediaeval  theology,  210 

Stepmother,  marriage  with,  an 
ancient  Semitic  practice,  238 

Stevenson,  R.  L. :  '  the  characters 
of  Scripture  are  a  marvel  of  the 
mind,'  281 

Stier:  on  the  manifold  'words' 
of  the  Creator,  172 

Stuarts,  the  :  state  of  the  English 
Church  imder  their  rule,  200  sq. 

Sulpicius  Severus  :  on  the  sophis- 
try of  '  handing  over  heretics 
to  the  secular  arm,'  197  n. 

Sultan,  the,  and  the  Grand  Vizier, 
story  of,  298 

Sumner,  Archbishop :  no  scien- 
tific truth  revealed  by  Scrip- 
ture, 158,  159 

Swedenborg :  specimen  of  his  ex- 
egesis, 74 

Swedish  Reformers,  the  :  rejected 
consubstantiation,  229 

Synods,  provincial :  first  formally 


settled  the  Canon  of  the  New 
Testament,  34  n. 

Talmudic  Treatment  of  the 
Canon,  28  «,,  33 

Taylor,  Jeremy :  definition  of  re- 
ligion, 170;  the  proper  end  of 
hearing  or  reading  Holy  Scrip- 
ture, 337 

Temple,  Archbishop :  the  theory 
of  literal  inspiration  a  gross 
superstition,  23  n.  /  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Bible  imafifeeted  by 
the  results  of  scientific  criti- 
cism, 126 

Tenak :  meaning  of  the  term,  31  n. 

Tennyson,  Lord :  his  loving  and 
reverent  allusions  to  the  Bible, 
281 

Tertullian :  on  perverted  inter- 
pretation of  Scripture,  76  n. 
God  revealed  by  Nature,  175 
taught  religious  tolerance,  197 
'  adoro  Scripturae  plenitudi 
nem,'  290 

Testamentum  (as  a  name  for  the 
books  of  the  Bible),  37  n. 

'  Texts,'  the  wresting  of,  218  sqq. 

Theodosius  :  decrees  against  the 
Manichees,  198 

Tor  ah:  meaning  of  the  word, 
31  n.,  33 

Toulouse,  Count  of :  treatment 
by  Innocent  III.,  190 

Translations  of  the  Bible :  none 
which  does  not  contain  errors, 
134,  135 

Translators  of  the  Bible,  the 
(1611) :  their  eulogy  of  the 
Scriptures,  274  sq. 

Transubstantiation,  the  doctrine 
of,  228  sq. 

'Travels  of  the  Apostles,  The,' 
41  »i. 

Trees,  the  two,  of  Eden,  242 

Trent,  Council  of:  its  admission 
of  the  Apocrypha  to  the  Canon, 
36 ;  its  Canon  of  Scripture,  151 ; 
acceptance  of  'tradition,'  152; 


358 


INDEX 


allowed  the  Bible  to  be  read 
only  by  those  who  had  permis- 
sion, 213 ;  condemned  '  indis- 
criminate reading  of  Sacred 
Scripture,'  329  n. 

Treves,  witches  burnt  at,  194 

Trullan  Council,  the,  35  n. 

Truthfulness,  the  law  of,  laid 
down  in  the  New  Testament, 
189 

'Two  Ways,  The,' 41  «. 

Tyndale  :  his  version  of  the  Bible 
ordered  to  be  burnt,  212 ;  his 
rejoinder  to  his  opponents,  214 ; 
on  the  vagaries  of  expositors, 
222 ;  put  to  death  for  the 
crime  of  translating  the  Bible, 
324 

Typology,  exaggerated  use  of,  in 
Biblical  exegesis,  58 

Ulfilas,  the  apostle  of  the  Goths, 
207 ;  invented  the  Gothic  al- 
phabet, and  translated  the 
Bible  into  Gothic,  322 

United  States  of  America :  in- 
fluence of  the  Bible  on  their 
progress,  325 

Upsala  (Sweden) :  a  manuscript 
of  Ulfilas's  Gothic  translation 
of  the  Bible  there,  322 

'IJrim  and  Thummim,'  meaning 
of,  292 

Usher,  Archbishop :  his  method 
of  reading  the  Scriptures,  334 

Vaughan,  Cardinal:  defence  of 
intolerance,  197  n. 

Vincent  de  Paul,  St. :  his  love  of 
the  Bible,  262 

Voltaire  :  his  religious  surround- 
ings, 216 

Wallis,  John :  the  Scriptures 
'  are  rather  a  Lanthorn  than  a 
Light,'  181 

Walton,  Izaak :  on  the  value  of 
the  Bible,  276 

Warburton,  Bishop :  his  theory  of 


inspiration,  123 ;  interpretation 
of  the  Fall,  242 

Warner,  C.  Dudley:  'no  intelli- 
gent person  .  .  .  can  afford  to 
be  ignorant  of  the  Bible,'  289 

Wars  of  the  Bible  :  gross  cruelties 
practised  in,  81 ;  wars  of  ex- 
termination, 182 

'  Wars  of  the  Lord,  the  Book  of 
the,'  40 

Watson,  Bishop :  his  '  Apology 
for  the  Bible,' 330 

Webster,  Daniel :  his  continued 
love  and  study  of  the  Bible,  287 

Weigel :  on  the  '  Word  of  God,' 
148 

Werenf  els :  his  epigram  on  Bib- 
lical infallibility,  154  sq. 

Wesley,  John :  rejected  the  sys- 
tem of  Copernicus,  163 ;  be- 
lieved in  witchcraft,  194;  on 
the  doctrine  of  reprobation  to 
eternal  torments,  233 ;  the  Bible 
contains  all  needful  knowledge, 
278 

Westbury,  Lord :  on  the  Church's 
teaching  about  the  Bible,  17  n. 

Westcott,  Bishop  :  on  the  growth 
of  the  Bible,  36  ;  his  definition 
of  religion,  171 ;  on  priestly  ab- 
solution, 227  H. 

Westminster  Assembly  (1643) : 
treatment  of  '  inspiration,'  18  n. 

Westminster  Confession,  the  :  on 
the  true  liberty  of  conscience,  3 

Whale,  the,  in  the  story  of  Jonah, 
252  sq. 

Whately,  Archbishop  :  on  '  our 
vile  body,'  223 

Whichcote,  Benjamin  :  on  the  use 
of  reason  by  the  Church,  3  ;  the 
use  of  reason  in  matters  of 
faith,  128  n. ;  definition  of  re- 
ligion, 171 

Whiston,  Rev.  W. :  his  '  New 
Theory  of  the  Earth,'  162 

White,  Dr.  A.  D.  :  on  the  warfare 
between  science  and  religion, 
163  n.,  166  n. 


INDEX 


359 


White,  Rev.  E. :  effects  of  Scrip- 
ture interpreted  by  au  enslaved 
intelligence,  215 

Whitfield,  G.  :  calumnious  charges 
brought  against  him,  315 

Whitman,  Walt :  his  eulogy  of 
the  Bible,  289  sq. 

Wilberforce,  William :  his  love 
of  the  Bible,  262 ;  the  Bible  his 
'  hourly  study,'  285 

Wilmot,  R.  S. :  the  way  to  read 
the  Psalms,  334 

Wilson,  Margaret:  account  of  her 
cruel  death,  305  sq. 

Wisdom  and  instruction,  the 
Scriptures  the  source  of,  331 

Witches  :  their  treatment  by  the 
Mosaic  Law,  192 ;  by  the 
medifeval  Popes,  193 ;  numbers 
of  witches  burnt,  194 

Wither,  George :  appreciation  of 
the  Bible,  276 

Wittenberg  theologians  (1638) : 
on  the  Greek  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament, 106 

'  Word  of  God ' :  the  phrase  not 
applied  in  Scripture  to  the 
Bible,  145 

Wordsworth,  Bishop :  his  inter- 
pretation of  the  story  of  Jael, 


74 ;  on  '  explanatory  interpola- 
tions'   in   MSS.   of  the  Scrip- 
tures, 108  n.  ;  on  misinterpreted 
Scripture,  169 
Wright,    Dr.  :    on   the    story    of 

Jonah,  251,  253 
Wiirzburg,  witches  burnt  at,  194 
Wycliffe :  denounced  for  his 
translation  of  the  Bible,  211, 
214;  his  exhumed  remains 
burnt  and  flung  into  the  Swift, 
323 

Xavier,  Francis :  account  of  his 
conversion,  295 ;  introduced 
Christianity  into  Japan,  326 

Young  :  his  Scriptural  allusions, 
276 

Zacharias,  Pope :  on  the  '  per- 
versa et  iniqua  doctrina'  of  a 
belief  in  the  Antipodes,  162  n. 

Zoclder,  Dr.  Otto :  on  the  story 
of  Jonah,  258  n. 

Zumbini,  Signer :  on  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Bible  on  the  Eng- 
lish people,  324 

Zwingli :  rejected  consubstautia- 
tion,  229 


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The  Bible,  its  meaning  and  supremacy, 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


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